Timeline for Is reusing old code for a new assignment considered self plagiarism? How to protect yourself if you consider it to be, and a group partner does not?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
10 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 4, 2020 at 18:09 | comment | added | psosuna | @DavidsaysReinstateMonica There is a benefit. A great deal of code written can stand to be improved. It's a mindset that a developer should have, that just as work that was written before can be reused, it can also stand to be improved and expanded upon. That the teammate wants to slap it in as-is carries a bit of hubris that I see as a negative personality trait of complacency. I couldn't expect well-maintained code from someone like that. | |
| Nov 4, 2015 at 9:39 | comment | added | justhalf | +1 Asking the professor is an answer to OP's first, realistic question, and if the prof allows the copying, then OP's second question (in the title) is invalid. If the prof doesn't allow the copying, then the answer to OP's second question is simply "Tell your teammate not to use the old code, since the prof says so." | |
| Nov 3, 2015 at 11:30 | comment | added | Aleksandr Dubinsky | @DavidGrinberg Professional programmer chiming in: Re-writing your own code is a great exercise. You can always make it more elegant, more flexible, faster, better, even if you don't rewrite it in a new language or framework. Any talented programmer could rewrite his treasured libraries over and over again if not constrained by time and reason. In moderation, it's a great way to become a better programmer. | |
| Nov 3, 2015 at 1:13 | comment | added | zxq9 | The process of refactoring it out into its own library would almost certainly be beneficial in many ways -- and a great opportunity to improve the code itself and take another look at what it does and understand what the point of it is. By that point, it is no longer self plagiarism by any measure, imo. This is totally different from copypasting code all over the new project. | |
| Nov 2, 2015 at 23:27 | comment | added | Perkins | Since the other student published his work, you'll definitely want to discuss it with the professor. Even if you did convince him to rewrite it from scratch, odds are it would be similar enough to trigger any anti-plagiarism tools the professor uses. | |
| Nov 2, 2015 at 13:13 | comment | added | Cronax | Additionally, the OP might come upon optimizations while rebuilding the library so regardless of whether or not it's plagiarism it's still going to have an educational value | |
| Nov 2, 2015 at 8:47 | comment | added | silvado | @DavidGrinberg The answer suggest that the OP rewrites the code, not his colleague who originally wrote the library. That's reproducing someone else's results and in most cases a good learning experience. | |
| Nov 1, 2015 at 22:59 | comment | added | David says Reinstate Monica | I think suggesting to rewrite it is a bit silly. First off, whats the stop a giant ctrl-a, ctrl-c? If my goal is to rewrite something I've written before, I'd hardly call that plagiarism. Second, whats the benefit of actually rewriting it? Just so you can check some mental checkbox? | |
| Nov 1, 2015 at 1:22 | vote | accept | Byte Lab | ||
| Nov 1, 2015 at 1:22 | history | answered | jakebeal | CC BY-SA 3.0 |