http://qs1969.pair.com?node_id=193871


in reply to Do my homework for me!

I suggest RTFM replies to no-effort homework questions. (Better if you're a bit more polite, though.) Just point the student to the appropriate documentation and let them decide to either read it or whinge about how hard computers are. If you want to take the time to point out common mistakes, useful idioms, potential pitfalls, and so on, all the better, but keep in mind that they have profs and teaching assistants who are paid to provide that level of instruction. For example:


Q: How do I add two dates?

A (short): Use Date::Calc.

A (long): Use Date::Calc. Watch out for time zone and DST issues.


We don't necessarily need to consider every suspicious question for deletion... some of them spark interesting discussion.

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F o x t r o t U n i f o r m
Found a typo in this node? /msg me
The hell with paco, vote for Erudil!

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Re: Re: Do my homework for me!
by jordanh (Chaplain) on Sep 02, 2002 at 02:19 UTC

      Q: How do I add two dates?

      A (short): Use Date::Calc.

      A (long): Use Date::Calc. Watch out for time zone and DST issues.


    Really excellent example! Why, just the other day, I wanted to know the sum of June 13th 1993 and October 23rd 1936. Date::Calc was just the thing for this common, but thorny, problem!

    Everybody knows to use Date::Calc for subtracting one date from another to get the number of dates they span or adding or subtracting a number of days to/from a given date, but not everybody knows the great utility that Date::Calc can be in adding two dates!

    :-)

      Sorta the kind of problem that would only show up in a homework assignment, isn't it? (And believe it or not, I got this one in a first year programming course....)

      --
      F o x t r o t U n i f o r m
      Found a typo in this node? /msg me
      The hell with paco, vote for Erudil!

Re: Re: Do my homework for me!
by ysth (Canon) on Feb 04, 2004 at 00:15 UTC
    Why add two dates? So you can divide by 2 and get the average! (Just kidding.)