I have been wondering about the purpose of disabling seeing other people's solutions before the particular problem is solved. As for me, I see nothing but advantages of allowing it and only few absurd reasons why it should be forbidden (e.g. cheating to boost the number of solved problems, which would actually be a waste of time for this user and no harm to anyone else). The main benefit would of course be the ability to learn solutions to problems one can not solve and improve his skills. Therefore, seeing other's sources should be allowed. Obviously, I am missing something as there is no such possibility in reality. So could someone clear the air and give solid reasons for prohibiting it?
Other Sources
well there are few reasons why it's better to be forbidden ...
1. in many cases you can't understand someone's source ...
2. you will better learn if you just ask for explanation than to see someone's source (there is forum just for that reason) ...
3. i think it's better to think for a while about some task than to see someone's code after 10 - 20 minutes ...
1. in many cases you can't understand someone's source ...
2. you will better learn if you just ask for explanation than to see someone's source (there is forum just for that reason) ...
3. i think it's better to think for a while about some task than to see someone's code after 10 - 20 minutes ...
And you can always ask for hints, help, etc...etc..
"1. in many cases you can't understand someone's source"
How is this an argument against allowing seeing other's solutions?
"3. i think it's better to think for a while about some task than to see someone's code after 10 - 20 minutes"
My strong belief is that everyone chooses his/her own path of practice. If it involves reading the solution after 10 minutes of solving - why not? Why should someone force others accept his/her favorite methods while it may actually slow down ones improvement. In addition, the dozens of obvious "less than 20 minutes spent on solving" topics in forum asking for help is a good example of such cases not being eliminated.
"2. you will better learn if you just ask for explanation than to see someone's source (there is forum just for that reason)"
"And you can always ask for hints, help, etc...etc.."
Yes, forums are helpful. But again, I do not see this as an argument for prohibiting this option, it is simply an alternative way of receiving help. Also, I agree that some hints are mostly better than a full solution at once. But various situations are possible. Maybe someone can not solve the problem because of a small subproblem he/she is unable to conquer that would ask seconds to understand from a correct solution. Maybe there are doubts about input/output format or some other minor details and it is essential for the user to either find these not-related-to-the-actual-solution errors or find out there are none and concentrate more on the idea. Again, everything depends on the situation and methods users prefer. And it is time consuming to get a satisfactory answer in forums as well. I see no problem in deducing solution from other's source to easy problems. On the other hand, if it makes no sense for maybe harder problems, asking for help in forums is the way. Therefore, a good quality of forum discussions could also be preserved.
And please do not misunderstand me. I am not here to argue about random subjects. I want to make this an even better place for everyone.
How is this an argument against allowing seeing other's solutions?
"3. i think it's better to think for a while about some task than to see someone's code after 10 - 20 minutes"
My strong belief is that everyone chooses his/her own path of practice. If it involves reading the solution after 10 minutes of solving - why not? Why should someone force others accept his/her favorite methods while it may actually slow down ones improvement. In addition, the dozens of obvious "less than 20 minutes spent on solving" topics in forum asking for help is a good example of such cases not being eliminated.
"2. you will better learn if you just ask for explanation than to see someone's source (there is forum just for that reason)"
"And you can always ask for hints, help, etc...etc.."
Yes, forums are helpful. But again, I do not see this as an argument for prohibiting this option, it is simply an alternative way of receiving help. Also, I agree that some hints are mostly better than a full solution at once. But various situations are possible. Maybe someone can not solve the problem because of a small subproblem he/she is unable to conquer that would ask seconds to understand from a correct solution. Maybe there are doubts about input/output format or some other minor details and it is essential for the user to either find these not-related-to-the-actual-solution errors or find out there are none and concentrate more on the idea. Again, everything depends on the situation and methods users prefer. And it is time consuming to get a satisfactory answer in forums as well. I see no problem in deducing solution from other's source to easy problems. On the other hand, if it makes no sense for maybe harder problems, asking for help in forums is the way. Therefore, a good quality of forum discussions could also be preserved.
And please do not misunderstand me. I am not here to argue about random subjects. I want to make this an even better place for everyone.
I'm also for the change in this one. It's like we were all cursed with this inability to view solutions, and you are trying to find reasons why this is not the end of the world. It isn't, yet the mechanism can still be improved. The forums are relatively slow, and even if they weren't, sometimes a verbal description just doesn't suffice. Clearly, the users are robbed of options here. Is discipline an issue? That won't help, since less disciplined users can just stop using the service and shift to communities with more open knowledge, like TopCoder. If the reason is to set some kind of a standard or to enable people to be proud with their solutions, well, that's what the competitions are for.
Another reason for opening the source code could be that most of the people won't come up with the correct idea for solving one task even if they try hard to do it. Take for example difficult problems where complicated algorithms are needed to solve them. The majority of users would learn such techniques if the code was open for everyone, otherwise they would just skip the task and wouldn't get to learn one particular method that helps in solving many other problems. Of cource, there will be users who copy solutions, but:
*) the fact that other users actually learn something is worth it;
*) in my opinion, such copy-solutions practice wouldn't be common among most of the users;
*) we can limit copy-pasting by making every source code a picture.
Another thing could be that every user decides, whether to open his code or not.
And, to think about it -- if you have already solved the problem, how often do you look at other solutions? Personally I do it very rarely, only for some particular reasons.
*) the fact that other users actually learn something is worth it;
*) in my opinion, such copy-solutions practice wouldn't be common among most of the users;
*) we can limit copy-pasting by making every source code a picture.
Another thing could be that every user decides, whether to open his code or not.
And, to think about it -- if you have already solved the problem, how often do you look at other solutions? Personally I do it very rarely, only for some particular reasons.
This thread has started to go in the wrong direction. The initial question still holds - WHY should seeing other's sources be prohibited? Until now there is formally not mentioned a single argument for it here. And I do not understand what is the big problem about some users copying solutions and submitting them. Yes, these are not their solutions. But how is it affecting anyone? There is no prize for having more than thousand correct submissions as far as I know.
Well see... some people like to compete here in a way like who'll solve more tasks...
And your idea would destroy that fun totaly....
I like it this way... And you can be happy that it isn't here like in SPOJ where you can't even see others solution when you've solved the task....
( try to ask them xD )
And your idea would destroy that fun totaly....
I like it this way... And you can be happy that it isn't here like in SPOJ where you can't even see others solution when you've solved the task....
( try to ask them xD )
If you get stuck in a problem, you can simply post the problem in the forum and tell us your approach to that problem. Moderators or other users will help you with some hints.
I total agree with Amtrix. Btw, when you are searching and reading literature from internet, you learn a lot more about some problem.
Yes, you all got me, I am just unsuccessfully trying to solve some problem and am too shy to ask for help in the forum and too dumb to search the solution on the Internet.
Why are you constantly misinterpreting my question and repeating the same thing over and over again? I was asking for exact reasons for prohibiting seeing other's solutions. Apparently there are no reasons as nobody can provide them. Sad though that people here are so overly conservative and defend the current system without evaluating it objectively by themselves. I have lost any hope of improving the situation.
Why are you constantly misinterpreting my question and repeating the same thing over and over again? I was asking for exact reasons for prohibiting seeing other's solutions. Apparently there are no reasons as nobody can provide them. Sad though that people here are so overly conservative and defend the current system without evaluating it objectively by themselves. I have lost any hope of improving the situation.
Yeah man, it's a cruel world. Alaska is cold and Africa has no snow, but nobody cares to tell you why and everybody is too conservative to improve the situation in either part of the world. Alas, some things are as they are, without a formal reason.
Personally I would soon lose interest in this site if it wouldn't have some kind of competitiveness and I guess that is true for most people, so that would be an argument for not showing the codes. But that probably is not formal enough for you to alleviate your sadness.
Personally I would soon lose interest in this site if it wouldn't have some kind of competitiveness and I guess that is true for most people, so that would be an argument for not showing the codes. But that probably is not formal enough for you to alleviate your sadness.
Just wanted to let you know that I closely follow this topic.
In my opinion most of the sources should stay hidden (maybe with few exceptions for easy, challenging and "open" problems).
Will post more later...
In my opinion most of the sources should stay hidden (maybe with few exceptions for easy, challenging and "open" problems).
Will post more later...
well really its not like we benefit a lot from just copying someone's code...we wont learn a thing and the rank and number of solved problems is not really we should be proud of so much...if tasks are meant for training then it really doesnt matter if u solve them or not...u should practise and get better at programming.ofc there will be people copying those code but so what.they are doing a bad thing to themselves only.solutions for programming tasks are soo hard to find and why should someone spent hours on forums and net when he can just see the right code and make use of it in the future
Hi guys, the final decision is NOT to put the actual sources.
Putting the sources would make the website easy to attack. For example, on spoj you can do that, Putting this code on my (or any website) will load injected javasctript.
This example would just prompt to you with your cookies for spoj.pl. You can test it just by looking at one of my submissions: https://www.spoj.pl/files/src/plain/3346688/ (nothing to be afraid of :) )
But I could very easily submit a script as a solution to spoj.pl that will (assuming you are logged in) change your password and send it to me, and do .. basically anything with your account, and you won't even be visiting spoj.pl, i could just include the iframe on any page anywhere (even a myspace page). Maybe changing the pass is not that easy, since old pass might be required, but everything else is very possible.
So, answer is NO, maybe some version of zipped files (or somehow modified) is possible,
Please, do not attempt to do what i described above - it is illegal! I just described it as an example!
One more time: DO NOT EXPLOIT VULNERABILITY DESCRIBED ABOVE.
Putting the sources would make the website easy to attack. For example, on spoj you can do that, Putting this code on my (or any website) will load injected javasctript.
<iframe src="https://www.spoj.pl/files/src/plain/3346688/"></iframe>This example would just prompt to you with your cookies for spoj.pl. You can test it just by looking at one of my submissions: https://www.spoj.pl/files/src/plain/3346688/ (nothing to be afraid of :) )
But I could very easily submit a script as a solution to spoj.pl that will (assuming you are logged in) change your password and send it to me, and do .. basically anything with your account, and you won't even be visiting spoj.pl, i could just include the iframe on any page anywhere (even a myspace page). Maybe changing the pass is not that easy, since old pass might be required, but everything else is very possible.
So, answer is NO, maybe some version of zipped files (or somehow modified) is possible,
Please, do not attempt to do what i described above - it is illegal! I just described it as an example!
One more time: DO NOT EXPLOIT VULNERABILITY DESCRIBED ABOVE.