Cutting and Pasting — Or Life is an Open Book Test

I’m obviously behind in my reading.

My favorite saying is that programming is all about cutting and pasting and the good programmers know which code to paste.  I have my students copy the code out of our book, code I write, etc.  I honestly feel I would be dishonest if I didn’t since that’s the way I’ve always programmed.

Oh, sure, there are times I write original code — I’ve been doing a ton of that showing examples of Alice code to my middle school students, at the same time, I expect them to copy and use my ideas — and my co-teacher copies my code in front of them.

Quoted from http://blogs.msdn.com/alfredth/archive/2009/06/13/real-life-is-an-open-book-test.aspx:

Computer Science Teacher – Thoughts and Information from Alfred Thompson : Real Life Is An Open Book Test


I don’t remember when I first heard someone say “real life is an open book test” but it really stopped me on my feet one day. It also influenced me as a teacher.

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