The Internet Virus--A Commentary

[Gene Spafford]

This is not the forum to discuss pedagogical philosophy, nor do I have
the time or energy to debate it.  However, many people on this net
seem to believe that every problem must be possible to solve with a
single answer.  That ain't necessarily so.  Sometimes, you advance
in increments, be they increments of making your system more secure,
or increments of guiding students to discover how to deal with
questions of right and wrong they may not have even discovered
existed.

In particular:
In article <542 at dutrun.UUCP> hans at duttnph.UUCP (Hans Buurman) writes:
>Come on, Mr. Spafford. You cannot believe that a course in ethics
>will get each and every undergraduate to live by the rules. And remember,
>it's the individual that we're afraid of, not the group.

I never claimed a course in ethics (or anything else) will help each
and every undergraduate live by the rules.  However, it will help a
significant number of students understand the rules bit better than the
current system does, and that is important.  If we advance the average,
it is a gain even if we don't advance every point.  There will always
be some students who cannot be reached through anything we do -- they
act as if they know everything already.  A few of them even post here
regularly :-)

We think a course requirement in professional and ethical issues
will be an aid, not a "cure."
-- 
Gene Spafford
NSF/Purdue/U of Florida  Software Engineering Research Center,
Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004
Internet:  spaf at cs.purdue.edu	uucp:	...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spaf