[plt-scheme] cutting and pasting snips

From: Prabhakar Ragde (plragde at uwaterloo.ca)
Date: Wed Oct 18 08:58:20 EDT 2006

Matthias Felleisen wrote:

> Which brings me to my last bullet on this topic: there is NO mechanical 
> tool that will enforce what you want. Lazy students will always be 
> tempted to use the output as the expected result and voilà, get perfect 
> tests.

Well, sure, I know that, and I was not asking for that problem to be 
solved. But we have a situation here where this natural temptation 
creates problems for me and for the markers, not for the students. I 
suppose I could give them zero on the question if we discover a snip in 
their design recipe, but it's still gummed up the works for us.

Ultimately, the source of the problem is the marking framework I 
inherited from other courses, a framework the tutors and TAs are used 
to, which involves automarking scripts that process text files. My 
original vision was to hand-mark within DrScheme. But the TAs complained 
bitterly after the first assignment of the pilot course (which had all 
of forty people in it) and the tutor set about writing the necessary 
scripts. If I want to change this framework, I have to roll up my 
sleeves and do it myself. I guess it's unfair to ask PLT to tweak editor 
behaviour so that I can put this off; I can throw wxme-to-text into the 
workflow as a stopgap. --PR


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