The very first text editor 3674

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No, it was a serious question.

I'm guessing that the point you're trying to make here is that there is a difference between a plain-text file and a MS Word document, and that students should be aware of this, and that by doing what I did I allowed the student to remain in ignorance.

It's a bit hard to second-guess something that happened under deadline pressure several years ago, but my guess is that it simply would not occur to me that a student in an upper-division CS elective could be ignorant of this difference. I'd be more likely to buttume that he did know better but didn't realize that I planned to compile the code and therefore figured that any format that could be turned into something human-readable would be okay. I had been asking for code to be turned in by e-mail all semester, and getting plain-text files, which I suppose would have confirmed in my mind that everyone did understand ....

If this had happened more than once with the same student, or if it hadn't been the end of the semester with no time to ask the student to try again, I *think* I'd have made more of a point of it.

To me it seems obvious that "send me your source code by e-mail" implies that I'm going to compile and test the code -- so obvious that I don't need to point it out. Maybe that's wrong. I might also be wrong about the students' level of basic knowledge. All things to keep in mind ....

-- B. L. Mbuttingill ObDisclaimer: I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.