5 ms·

If the best they can supply is an online exam document that literally contains answers in the html document, then maybe paper exams should come back while they

If the best they can supply is an online exam document that literally contains answers in the html document, then maybe paper exams should come back while they think about what they’ve done and try again later

chromanoid 5y ago
Wow, you seem to ride a really high horse if this is the hill you want to die on. As if technical debt and subpar solutions are totally alien to software developers.
- grayhatter 5y ago
  I think you're trying to say something close to perfect is the enemy of good. Which I totally agree with. But worse than what we have now, isn't an acceptable stepping stone because things might get better. If teachers can't write tests that students can't cheat on without using paper, then we still need paper. While yes, theses tests are broken. The problem isn't the test, the issue is breaking something useful, so that we can have something that might get better some day. No, it won't get better. More people will depend on putting answers in the html source code delivered to clients, and everything will keep being shit. I'm perfectly happy to die on this hill. But the hill isn't "subpar solutions can never be used, everything must be perfect from commit 0" The hill I'm willing to die on is "Don't break something that's currently good, to fix something that's already horribly broken and bad." Which I' argue is a good hill to die on.
  - chromanoid 5y ago
    > If teachers can't write tests that students can't cheat on without using paper, then we still need paper. LOL. Teachers will never be able to prevent students from cheating. This will only help against a very easily accessible way of cheating that would otherwise render Google Forms Quiz useless for teachers. They don't remove your precious feature. I would fight against this too, if they would. They just allow admins to restrict it on workstations they manage. Just having a shitty electron app in Windows kiosk mode is the alternative... which I thinks is definitely worse. You seem to unknowingly argue against straw men!
    - grayhatter 5y ago
      > LOL. Teachers will never be able to prevent students from cheating. This will only help against a very easily accessible way of cheating that would otherwise render Google Forms Quiz useless for teachers. If Google Forms Quiz embeds the test answers into the html, then is it is already worse than useless. > They don't remove your precious feature. I would fight against this too, if they would. I've already said this to you in another thread, but my sister is a school teacher. I do tech support for her all the time. This *is* something that *WILL* make my life harder. Now that you know it's a feature I need and use to be able to help her, will you actually argue against this with me? > They just allow admins to restrict it on workstations they manage. Just having a shitty electron app in Windows kiosk mode is the alternative... which I thinks is definitely worse. I think electron is worse, but if that's the only other option, then I'd rather they break the test specific electron app instead of the chromium browser that I have to use for everything. This is where I also point out that just because the feature does allow for a small list of websites to block view-source on. There's nothing preventing a stupid or lazy admin who sets it up from blocking it on every computer the school uses. > You seem to unknowingly argue against straw men! No, I'm not. I feel as if you're trying to insult me.. But I think it might be I'm not explaining myself well enough.
      - chromanoid 5y ago
        > I've already said this to you in another thread, but my sister is a school teacher. I do tech support for her all the time. This is something that WILL make my life harder. Now that you know it's a feature I need and use to be able to help her, will you actually argue against this with me? Lol, my mom was a teacher, my wife is a teacher, my sister is a teacher, my sister in law will be a teacher. For all I did tech support. Now what? Actually I think this is a very nice simple solution. Under the circumstances that teachers like to use Google Forms and Google seems to shit on teachers with this use case, let the admin simply deactivate view source for Google Forms URLs and no problem any more. This will only affect student accounts, maybe even only student exam accounts and the problem is solved, especially in primary education.
        5y ago
- danShumway 5y ago
  Technical debt like knowingly shipping privileged information to the client by design? I mean, it is true that 'perfect' is the enemy of the good. But 'terrible' is also the enemy of the good. I would question whether a computerized test with these problems is actually better than a paper test. But more than that, I would question whether people have an obligation to make other products worse just to accommodate bad coding. I don't think anyone is demanding perfection by (correctly) pointing out that not designing a product to deliberately leak secure information is kind of the bare minimum bar in a secure testing environment.
- Brian_K_White 5y ago
  There is no excuse for this level. If it seems ok enough to you, it just means you aren't in the field, or shouldn't be if you are.

chromanoid 5y ago

Wow, you seem to ride a really high horse if this is the hill you want to die on. As if technical debt and subpar solutions are totally alien to software developers.

grayhatter 5y ago
I think you're trying to say something close to perfect is the enemy of good. Which I totally agree with. But worse than what we have now, isn't an acceptable stepping stone because things might get better. If teachers can't write tests that students can't cheat on without using paper, then we still need paper. While yes, theses tests are broken. The problem isn't the test, the issue is breaking something useful, so that we can have something that might get better some day. No, it won't get better. More people will depend on putting answers in the html source code delivered to clients, and everything will keep being shit. I'm perfectly happy to die on this hill. But the hill isn't "subpar solutions can never be used, everything must be perfect from commit 0" The hill I'm willing to die on is "Don't break something that's currently good, to fix something that's already horribly broken and bad." Which I' argue is a good hill to die on.
- chromanoid 5y ago
  > If teachers can't write tests that students can't cheat on without using paper, then we still need paper. LOL. Teachers will never be able to prevent students from cheating. This will only help against a very easily accessible way of cheating that would otherwise render Google Forms Quiz useless for teachers. They don't remove your precious feature. I would fight against this too, if they would. They just allow admins to restrict it on workstations they manage. Just having a shitty electron app in Windows kiosk mode is the alternative... which I thinks is definitely worse. You seem to unknowingly argue against straw men!
  - grayhatter 5y ago
    > LOL. Teachers will never be able to prevent students from cheating. This will only help against a very easily accessible way of cheating that would otherwise render Google Forms Quiz useless for teachers. If Google Forms Quiz embeds the test answers into the html, then is it is already worse than useless. > They don't remove your precious feature. I would fight against this too, if they would. I've already said this to you in another thread, but my sister is a school teacher. I do tech support for her all the time. This *is* something that *WILL* make my life harder. Now that you know it's a feature I need and use to be able to help her, will you actually argue against this with me? > They just allow admins to restrict it on workstations they manage. Just having a shitty electron app in Windows kiosk mode is the alternative... which I thinks is definitely worse. I think electron is worse, but if that's the only other option, then I'd rather they break the test specific electron app instead of the chromium browser that I have to use for everything. This is where I also point out that just because the feature does allow for a small list of websites to block view-source on. There's nothing preventing a stupid or lazy admin who sets it up from blocking it on every computer the school uses. > You seem to unknowingly argue against straw men! No, I'm not. I feel as if you're trying to insult me.. But I think it might be I'm not explaining myself well enough.
    - chromanoid 5y ago
      > I've already said this to you in another thread, but my sister is a school teacher. I do tech support for her all the time. This is something that WILL make my life harder. Now that you know it's a feature I need and use to be able to help her, will you actually argue against this with me? Lol, my mom was a teacher, my wife is a teacher, my sister is a teacher, my sister in law will be a teacher. For all I did tech support. Now what? Actually I think this is a very nice simple solution. Under the circumstances that teachers like to use Google Forms and Google seems to shit on teachers with this use case, let the admin simply deactivate view source for Google Forms URLs and no problem any more. This will only affect student accounts, maybe even only student exam accounts and the problem is solved, especially in primary education.
      - 5y ago
danShumway 5y ago
Technical debt like knowingly shipping privileged information to the client by design? I mean, it is true that 'perfect' is the enemy of the good. But 'terrible' is also the enemy of the good. I would question whether a computerized test with these problems is actually better than a paper test. But more than that, I would question whether people have an obligation to make other products worse just to accommodate bad coding. I don't think anyone is demanding perfection by (correctly) pointing out that not designing a product to deliberately leak secure information is kind of the bare minimum bar in a secure testing environment.
Brian_K_White 5y ago
There is no excuse for this level. If it seems ok enough to you, it just means you aren't in the field, or shouldn't be if you are.