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From https://jeffe.cs.illinois.edu/teaching/algorithms/hwex.html#solutions https://jeffe.cs.illinois.edu/teaching/algorithms/hwex.html#... >Please do not ask m

by asicsp 6y ago

From https://jeffe.cs.illinois.edu/teaching/algorithms/hwex.html#solutions https://jeffe.cs.illinois.edu/teaching/algorithms/hwex.html#... >Please do not ask me for solutions. With very rare exceptions, I will say no, even if you are an instructor. I recognize that my stance limits the utility of these materials, especially for self-learners, but I'm trying to optimize the learning experience of my own students at Illinois. The point of homework is not to solve that particular homework problem, but to practice solving a type of problem and get honest feedback on your progress. I've found that when solutions are available, my own students are much more likely to rely on them, rather than trying to figure out the problems themselves, which means they get both less practice and less honest feedback, which means they do worse on exams and in the course overall. Interesting. I was asked multiple times for solutions to my self-pub ebooks that I relented. I didn't add them initially as I wanted readers to solve by themselves or ask for help if needed (and I did get a few mails, saw one of them asked on stackoverflow as well). See also https://github.com/tayllan/awesome-algorithms https://github.com/tayllan/awesome-algorithms for more learning resources, practice problems, visualizations, etc.

notmenope 6y ago
As someone who likes an occasional refresher on CS topics this is disappointing, but as someone who makes over $100/hr to complete CS assignments for other people, I'm ecstatic.
Robotbeat 6y ago
My preferred approach is when solutions to odd numbered problems are available. This is especially helpful years hence when help may not be immediately available.
- jrib 6y ago
  Yep, I think this is a good middle ground. By all means encourage students to churn when solving a problem, but you can get stuck. Actually reading and following a solution to a similar problem can provide some insight.
JoshTriplett 6y ago
> I was asked multiple times for solutions to my self-pub ebooks that I relented. You could always publish the solutions in a separate paid ebook. If people want to be able to check their own answers, or they want to use the exercises to set homework and make it easier to grade, they might be willing to pay you for them.
- tasogare 6y ago
  Caricatural mercantile thinking at play here. It’s sad to read.
- aspaceman 6y ago
  > they might be willing to pay you for them. I think we have some differences of opinion about the point of students not having the solutions. (Hint: Some people arent as greedy as you)
  - JoshTriplett 6y ago
    That wasn't the point. I tend to believe that solutions should be available, and that their availability helps people learn, more so than it hinders. I suggested a paid download for two reasons: because it could potentially provide a minor barrier to prevent people from unthinkingly looking up a solution, and because it supports the presentation of detailed, worked solutions rather than just a simple answer key. The cost is one potential means (and not the only one), not an end unto itself.
  - avindroth 6y ago
    Ad hominem much?
    - aspaceman 6y ago
      How? What's the argument? I thought his idea showed he was a greedy fuck, so I called the dude a greedy fuck. There's no ad hominem if there's no argument. Just came off as transparently greedy and selfish
  - 6y ago
matsemann 6y ago
While I get this stance (the books are often written with students in mind), it's sometimes a bit hard when reading this kind of material while not enrolled. I don't have any TAs, professors, peers etc to ask or grade my stuff when working my way through a text book in my spare time. How can I be sure I understood stuff correctly? For me it's ok, I guess. I have graduated years ago and it's strictly for fun. But I wonder if it also creates a kind of artificial divide for those not able to attend a university but could have gotten good use of this kind of material by self study. Edit, found this quote from him on an earlier discussion which summarizes it nicely: > I'm honestly seriously torn about this. There is a serious tension between pedagogical needs of students in formal classrooms and the pedagogical needs of self-learners. I've chosen to aim for the former. Yes, I know it's a bummer.
- bhrgunatha 6y ago
  That's what was good about the early stages of sites like Coursera, Udacity and Edx - they had quizzes, exercises and exams that are auto-graded that provided that kind of valuable feedback for all tiers. I think they've all evolved now to where that is only available for paid tiers. One innovation I really enjoyed was marking and commenting another student's answers, once you'd submitted your own. There are flaws but it's a valuable variation on graded feedback.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- stevegalla 6y ago
  > I don't have any TAs, professors, peers etc to ask or grade my stuff when working my way through a text book in my spare time. How can I be sure I understood stuff correctly? I definitely agree with you on this. However, there are three things self-learners (or even students) can do. 1. Find a textbook with worked solutions or a different presentation of material. 2. Look for course material that has problem sets with solutions, worked tutorials, or worked examples. 3. Learn numerical or other methods to evaluate your solutions. I know this isn’t possible for proofs, but if it’s an algorithm’s run time, I don’t see how implementing the algorithm and plotting run times over different input sizes wouldn’t be a good way to see if you have the correct run time.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
berta 6y ago
This would be like learning piano without a teacher listening to our mistakes.
TheTrotters 6y ago
I hate this attitude. It punishes students (and self-learners) who want to be as good as possible and who’d use solutions to get fast feedback. The right thing to do is to publish detailed solutions to textbook problems and create new problems for HWs.
- comeonseriously 6y ago
  "The right thing to do..." No. He's the author, this is his choice. People who don't take his course don't have to use the book.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    Poor logic. I don't have add tests to my code, after all they're free not to merge, but I should. Exercises with no solutions are very hard for people learning away from traditional academia - I haven't read this book so I don't know what they're like, but in a physics books it's often common to add questions that take fairly deep conceptual understanding which if you don't click with the book means you're totally out of action until you find somewhere else to learn from.
    - comeonseriously 6y ago
      Again, you don't have to use this book. There are hundreds of books on algorithms, many of which have solutions for people who need them. Getting all pissy with the author because he doesn't provide them is sad and not neccessary.
      - sohdas 6y ago
        I don't know, I think he made a very fair critique. Sure, there are hundreds of algorithms textbooks. But there are hundreds of anything. Anyone can make anything they want to, and they are subject to criticism for that.
        dominotw 6y ago
Hiopl 6y ago
I mean, he's aiming for his main demographic. For anybody who isn't a student of his, there is no honest feedback, because there's no feedback at all. What good is solving a problem if you never find out whether you made a mistake?
gnubison 6y ago
I like the awesome-algorithms link, but some of the code linked is definitely not perfect. A few questionable things from one of the header files [0] in https://github.com/TheAlgorithms/C https://github.com/TheAlgorithms/C: - Defines a macro with no parentheses - Uses unsigned for length and capacity (should be size_t) - Uses () instead of (void) for an empty parameter list - Useless use of "extern" for function declarations - I think that leading double underscores and structures ending with _t are reserved identifiers, but I don't really have a good source for this [0]: https://github.com/TheAlgorithms/C/blob/master/data_structures/dynamic_array/dynamic_array.h https://github.com/TheAlgorithms/C/blob/master/data_structur...
jefferickson 6y ago
> See also https://github.com/tayllan/awesome-algorithms https://github.com/tayllan/awesome-algorithms for more learning resources, practice problems, visualizations, etc. Oooo, nice. Thanks for the link!

by asicsp 6y ago

notmenope 6y ago

As someone who likes an occasional refresher on CS topics this is disappointing, but as someone who makes over $100/hr to complete CS assignments for other people, I'm ecstatic.

Robotbeat 6y ago

My preferred approach is when solutions to odd numbered problems are available. This is especially helpful years hence when help may not be immediately available.

jrib 6y ago
Yep, I think this is a good middle ground. By all means encourage students to churn when solving a problem, but you can get stuck. Actually reading and following a solution to a similar problem can provide some insight.

JoshTriplett 6y ago

> I was asked multiple times for solutions to my self-pub ebooks that I relented. You could always publish the solutions in a separate paid ebook. If people want to be able to check their own answers, or they want to use the exercises to set homework and make it easier to grade, they might be willing to pay you for them.

tasogare 6y ago
Caricatural mercantile thinking at play here. It’s sad to read.
aspaceman 6y ago
> they might be willing to pay you for them. I think we have some differences of opinion about the point of students not having the solutions. (Hint: Some people arent as greedy as you)
- JoshTriplett 6y ago
  That wasn't the point. I tend to believe that solutions should be available, and that their availability helps people learn, more so than it hinders. I suggested a paid download for two reasons: because it could potentially provide a minor barrier to prevent people from unthinkingly looking up a solution, and because it supports the presentation of detailed, worked solutions rather than just a simple answer key. The cost is one potential means (and not the only one), not an end unto itself.
- avindroth 6y ago
  Ad hominem much?
  - aspaceman 6y ago
    How? What's the argument? I thought his idea showed he was a greedy fuck, so I called the dude a greedy fuck. There's no ad hominem if there's no argument. Just came off as transparently greedy and selfish
- 6y ago

matsemann 6y ago

While I get this stance (the books are often written with students in mind), it's sometimes a bit hard when reading this kind of material while not enrolled. I don't have any TAs, professors, peers etc to ask or grade my stuff when working my way through a text book in my spare time. How can I be sure I understood stuff correctly? For me it's ok, I guess. I have graduated years ago and it's strictly for fun. But I wonder if it also creates a kind of artificial divide for those not able to attend a university but could have gotten good use of this kind of material by self study. Edit, found this quote from him on an earlier discussion which summarizes it nicely: > I'm honestly seriously torn about this. There is a serious tension between pedagogical needs of students in formal classrooms and the pedagogical needs of self-learners. I've chosen to aim for the former. Yes, I know it's a bummer.

bhrgunatha 6y ago
That's what was good about the early stages of sites like Coursera, Udacity and Edx - they had quizzes, exercises and exams that are auto-graded that provided that kind of valuable feedback for all tiers. I think they've all evolved now to where that is only available for paid tiers. One innovation I really enjoyed was marking and commenting another student's answers, once you'd submitted your own. There are flaws but it's a valuable variation on graded feedback.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
stevegalla 6y ago
> I don't have any TAs, professors, peers etc to ask or grade my stuff when working my way through a text book in my spare time. How can I be sure I understood stuff correctly? I definitely agree with you on this. However, there are three things self-learners (or even students) can do. 1. Find a textbook with worked solutions or a different presentation of material. 2. Look for course material that has problem sets with solutions, worked tutorials, or worked examples. 3. Learn numerical or other methods to evaluate your solutions. I know this isn’t possible for proofs, but if it’s an algorithm’s run time, I don’t see how implementing the algorithm and plotting run times over different input sizes wouldn’t be a good way to see if you have the correct run time.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

berta 6y ago

This would be like learning piano without a teacher listening to our mistakes.

TheTrotters 6y ago

I hate this attitude. It punishes students (and self-learners) who want to be as good as possible and who’d use solutions to get fast feedback. The right thing to do is to publish detailed solutions to textbook problems and create new problems for HWs.

comeonseriously 6y ago
"The right thing to do..." No. He's the author, this is his choice. People who don't take his course don't have to use the book.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  Poor logic. I don't have add tests to my code, after all they're free not to merge, but I should. Exercises with no solutions are very hard for people learning away from traditional academia - I haven't read this book so I don't know what they're like, but in a physics books it's often common to add questions that take fairly deep conceptual understanding which if you don't click with the book means you're totally out of action until you find somewhere else to learn from.
  - comeonseriously 6y ago
    Again, you don't have to use this book. There are hundreds of books on algorithms, many of which have solutions for people who need them. Getting all pissy with the author because he doesn't provide them is sad and not neccessary.
    - sohdas 6y ago
      I don't know, I think he made a very fair critique. Sure, there are hundreds of algorithms textbooks. But there are hundreds of anything. Anyone can make anything they want to, and they are subject to criticism for that.
      - dominotw 6y ago

Hiopl 6y ago

I mean, he's aiming for his main demographic. For anybody who isn't a student of his, there is no honest feedback, because there's no feedback at all. What good is solving a problem if you never find out whether you made a mistake?

gnubison 6y ago

I like the awesome-algorithms link, but some of the code linked is definitely not perfect. A few questionable things from one of the header files [0] in https://github.com/TheAlgorithms/C https://github.com/TheAlgorithms/C: - Defines a macro with no parentheses - Uses unsigned for length and capacity (should be size_t) - Uses () instead of (void) for an empty parameter list - Useless use of "extern" for function declarations - I think that leading double underscores and structures ending with _t are reserved identifiers, but I don't really have a good source for this [0]: https://github.com/TheAlgorithms/C/blob/master/data_structures/dynamic_array/dynamic_array.h https://github.com/TheAlgorithms/C/blob/master/data_structur...

jefferickson 6y ago

> See also https://github.com/tayllan/awesome-algorithms https://github.com/tayllan/awesome-algorithms for more learning resources, practice problems, visualizations, etc. Oooo, nice. Thanks for the link!