Here at University of Maryland at College Park, I'd say our policy is pretty good.
"For academic honesty purposes, projects are considered comparable to an extended take-home exam. That is, any cooperation prohibited on the exam is also prohibited for the project. Students are welcome to study or solicit help in learning course and C++ language concepts from any others. Once you've received a numeric grade for a project, you are welcome and encouraged to compare it with any classmates who have also received a numeric grade for that assignment."
In other words, you are perfectly welcome to go open a book and teach yourself whatever you want. You are 100% within your rights to go ask someone how C-style pointers work.
I'll never understand how people at some schools can graduate without learning to code properly (as some people have claimed happens at their schools)... here at UMCP, you're either a code ninja or changing majors. The good part is that engineers can't make fun of you for being dumb:).
-Erwos
A story:
Back way back when Debian was still using a 2.0.36 kernel (they did finally move to 2.2, right?;) ), and I was a Linux virgin, my family decided they wanted to have all the networked computers in the house on the net at once. We were using an absolutely horrible piece of software called WinGate, may it die a thousand deaths, to do that and it just wasn't very satisfying. More to the point, I couldn't play Half-Life over it.
Fortunately, we had a spare 486 lying around. My dad mentioned he heard of something called Linux that could do what WinGate was(n't) doing, so I downloaded some Debian install floppy disks. I was somewhat computer-savvy, so I wasn't terribly upset at having to manually specify what was in my computer during the install, or play with partitions - I mean, that stuff you've gotta do in Windows, so what's the big deal about doing it with a console interface?
It installed and worked fine _the first time_. I didn't have X11 (that didn't really fit on the floppies), but I had been fine with DOS, so command lines were fine. I will grant you that I probably knew more about computers than the average joe at that point in time, but I really think that reasonably intelligent person who knows what's in their computer could install Debian with no problems back then. It's probably more true nowadays.
And, yes, I did make it into a router with a simple kernel compile and some patches.:) My GPA went straight to hell after that, too much Counter-Strike...
-Erwos
Are you out of your mind?
No one is going to feel any sympathy whatsoever for a group that uses nukes to make a political point. The standing policy of the US for forever has been, "hit us with a weapon of mass destruction, and you get nuked to hell". Remember? It's called MAD - mutually assured destruction. Despite what some idiots doing reporting today will tell you, there's a clear and definable difference between acting and reacting. The two are _not_ morally equivalent.
Besides, do you really give a damn about what some part of the world who's cheering for you getting nuked in the first place is going to think when they get hit back? You had a million Arabs cheering on 9/11 and then crying about the poor people in Afghanistan when they got what they deserved (probably better, in fact). Do you really care what some mullah in Iran is saying about the injustice of the US in Afghanistan? Of course not, because that same asshole was preaching about Allah's goodness to kill 3000 infidels.
As to the silly assertation that no one but a terrorist group would launch a nuclear attack, remember that in some countries, dying while resisting the infidels (as some would call nuking us) gets you to be a martyr, and that means 72 virgins at your beck and call! If death is a reward, then they have nothing to lose. That's part (not _all_, I'm not going to stupidly assign all blame to the PA) of the current Middle East problems - if you educate everyone that killing some Israelis is a good thing that gets you to heaven, and dying will get you hooked up, why the hell should you ever stop fighting? You can't negotiate with someone who literally has nothing to lose.
Sorry if I sound a tad bit blood-thirsty, but I'm just sick and tired of sucking up to countries that hate us and actively support people who kill Americans in the name of G-d.
-Erwos
About 4 months ago, I shopped around for a laptop for school. I just needed it for note-taking, although I wanted something with enough power to run a GUI.
I eventually found a laptop at http://www.compgeeks.com . It's a P166 MMX, not in perfect shape, but it came with docking bay and unguaranteed battery for $180.
Your best bet to find a cheap laptop is to hit reseller shops on the web. eBay is a lot more hit and miss - sometimes you'll find a great deal, most of the time, they'll suck.
I honestly see this sort of thing having potential. Computer games, when intelligently made, can teach you about something. For instance, Railroad Tycoon II's educational value in supply and demand economics is extremely useful - it would probably be easier to tell people to play it for a week rather than waste their time in economics class.
When you think of a game that teaches something, don't think of the crap edutainment games you bought for your kid when they were 5. Think of SimCity and the like, where you learn by getting better at the game.
The irony is that I was thinking about doubling up my CompSci degree with government and politics - maybe that's a good idea after all?
-Erwos
I liked Loki, a lot. Their software was usually pretty good after you patched it up, which I can't really hold against them, as it's par course in the industry nowadays.
However, Loki died because of their business plan. As several people have pointed out, concurrent development is the only way a porting company is going to work - any real delay, and people will snatch up the Win9X copies.
I think that Linux is a viable gaming platform, but that companies should develop _original_ games for it and sell them direct. Those guys who make Uplink, (Transversion?) seem to have been experiencing some success with that model. Of course, you'd want to sell cross-platform, but it would seem that porting an SDL game from Linux to Windows is a tad bit simpler than porting the same game from Windows to Linux when using DirectX.
Although I haven't used SDL, aren't there supposed to be cross-platform libraries for it? It strikes me as an interesting business plan to try to sell binaries for _all_ platforms SDL supports, or at least the major ones, like Linux, Windows, MacOS X, maybe even BeOS. Maximize market, minimize costs - sounds like a winning solution, assuming the game don't suck.
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Here at University of Maryland at College Park, I'd say our policy is pretty good. "For academic honesty purposes, projects are considered comparable to an extended take-home exam. That is, any cooperation prohibited on the exam is also prohibited for the project. Students are welcome to study or solicit help in learning course and C++ language concepts from any others. Once you've received a numeric grade for a project, you are welcome and encouraged to compare it with any classmates who have also received a numeric grade for that assignment." In other words, you are perfectly welcome to go open a book and teach yourself whatever you want. You are 100% within your rights to go ask someone how C-style pointers work. I'll never understand how people at some schools can graduate without learning to code properly (as some people have claimed happens at their schools)... here at UMCP, you're either a code ninja or changing majors. The good part is that engineers can't make fun of you for being dumb :).
-Erwos
A story: Back way back when Debian was still using a 2.0.36 kernel (they did finally move to 2.2, right? ;) ), and I was a Linux virgin, my family decided they wanted to have all the networked computers in the house on the net at once. We were using an absolutely horrible piece of software called WinGate, may it die a thousand deaths, to do that and it just wasn't very satisfying. More to the point, I couldn't play Half-Life over it.
Fortunately, we had a spare 486 lying around. My dad mentioned he heard of something called Linux that could do what WinGate was(n't) doing, so I downloaded some Debian install floppy disks. I was somewhat computer-savvy, so I wasn't terribly upset at having to manually specify what was in my computer during the install, or play with partitions - I mean, that stuff you've gotta do in Windows, so what's the big deal about doing it with a console interface?
It installed and worked fine _the first time_. I didn't have X11 (that didn't really fit on the floppies), but I had been fine with DOS, so command lines were fine. I will grant you that I probably knew more about computers than the average joe at that point in time, but I really think that reasonably intelligent person who knows what's in their computer could install Debian with no problems back then. It's probably more true nowadays.
And, yes, I did make it into a router with a simple kernel compile and some patches. :) My GPA went straight to hell after that, too much Counter-Strike...
-Erwos
Are you out of your mind? No one is going to feel any sympathy whatsoever for a group that uses nukes to make a political point. The standing policy of the US for forever has been, "hit us with a weapon of mass destruction, and you get nuked to hell". Remember? It's called MAD - mutually assured destruction. Despite what some idiots doing reporting today will tell you, there's a clear and definable difference between acting and reacting. The two are _not_ morally equivalent. Besides, do you really give a damn about what some part of the world who's cheering for you getting nuked in the first place is going to think when they get hit back? You had a million Arabs cheering on 9/11 and then crying about the poor people in Afghanistan when they got what they deserved (probably better, in fact). Do you really care what some mullah in Iran is saying about the injustice of the US in Afghanistan? Of course not, because that same asshole was preaching about Allah's goodness to kill 3000 infidels. As to the silly assertation that no one but a terrorist group would launch a nuclear attack, remember that in some countries, dying while resisting the infidels (as some would call nuking us) gets you to be a martyr, and that means 72 virgins at your beck and call! If death is a reward, then they have nothing to lose. That's part (not _all_, I'm not going to stupidly assign all blame to the PA) of the current Middle East problems - if you educate everyone that killing some Israelis is a good thing that gets you to heaven, and dying will get you hooked up, why the hell should you ever stop fighting? You can't negotiate with someone who literally has nothing to lose. Sorry if I sound a tad bit blood-thirsty, but I'm just sick and tired of sucking up to countries that hate us and actively support people who kill Americans in the name of G-d. -Erwos
About 4 months ago, I shopped around for a laptop for school. I just needed it for note-taking, although I wanted something with enough power to run a GUI.
I eventually found a laptop at http://www.compgeeks.com . It's a P166 MMX, not in perfect shape, but it came with docking bay and unguaranteed battery for $180.
Your best bet to find a cheap laptop is to hit reseller shops on the web. eBay is a lot more hit and miss - sometimes you'll find a great deal, most of the time, they'll suck.
-Erwos
I honestly see this sort of thing having potential. Computer games, when intelligently made, can teach you about something. For instance, Railroad Tycoon II's educational value in supply and demand economics is extremely useful - it would probably be easier to tell people to play it for a week rather than waste their time in economics class. When you think of a game that teaches something, don't think of the crap edutainment games you bought for your kid when they were 5. Think of SimCity and the like, where you learn by getting better at the game. The irony is that I was thinking about doubling up my CompSci degree with government and politics - maybe that's a good idea after all? -Erwos
I liked Loki, a lot. Their software was usually pretty good after you patched it up, which I can't really hold against them, as it's par course in the industry nowadays.
However, Loki died because of their business plan. As several people have pointed out, concurrent development is the only way a porting company is going to work - any real delay, and people will snatch up the Win9X copies.
I think that Linux is a viable gaming platform, but that companies should develop _original_ games for it and sell them direct. Those guys who make Uplink, (Transversion?) seem to have been experiencing some success with that model. Of course, you'd want to sell cross-platform, but it would seem that porting an SDL game from Linux to Windows is a tad bit simpler than porting the same game from Windows to Linux when using DirectX.
Although I haven't used SDL, aren't there supposed to be cross-platform libraries for it? It strikes me as an interesting business plan to try to sell binaries for _all_ platforms SDL supports, or at least the major ones, like Linux, Windows, MacOS X, maybe even BeOS. Maximize market, minimize costs - sounds like a winning solution, assuming the game don't suck.
-Erwos