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Comment by lainga | Hacker News Reader

Have you considered taking up the textbook model of providing answers to only a subset of the questions?

When I first provided the book (?96), with it I provided for free download the answers to about half of the questions. The web page said something like, "If you are an instructor then write me and I'll give you access to the rest." But just how foolish that was quickly became apparent: telling who is acutally an instructor or someone learning on their own, and not someone just saying that, was not something that I could do.

Publishers reps seem to me to rely on paper mail, and an address like "Math Dept, St Michael's College" does provide some kind of proof. But I sometimes get emails like "I am a student in a poor country and the only way ..." and I simply am not saying no to that.

That last sentence also answers why I don't erase half of the answers.

Free texts are a different model and there are a lot of kinks.

The folks who wrote the book this thread is based on have done something great. (I teach Discrete and I had a look to see if I could use it.) But including answers is a problem to which I am unaware of a solution. Or maybe, it is just that expectations have to change.

Maybe your problem is just being overly consistent? Wouldn't just making half the answers officially available, but not troubling yourself overly over whether you can validate that someone really is an instructor allow you to you to have your cake and eat it too? As you point out, the profs who think they can't teach out of a book with officially available answers are probably deluded anyway, and the answers not being "officially" available might be enough to satisfy them (and thus for you to reap the academic reward for your effort you deserve). A text book with available answers is a so much greater public good, it's disheartening to see you penalized for it.

The obvious solution would be to not provide access to the even-numbered answers to anyone. Students in poor countries would presumably be able to study with just the odd numbered questions (after all, university students are expected to do so). Requests from instructors could be answered with "If you can't solve these problems yourself, you have no business assigning them as homework.", or, if you're feeling particularly Kafkaesque, assume the're all actually students and congratulate them on having a particularly convincing return address, but no, you're still not going to help them cheat.

This does call for a rather more misanthropic attitude than you seem to have, though.

Last summer, around the time my mom passed, someone who teaches out of my book sent me a picture of her class. Just by coincidence this was near to where my mom and dad grew up in the 1940's. It was a room of bright people, all kinds of shades, who wanted the American dream and were working through Linear Algebra on their way up there.

So no, I'm not doing that. :-)

Please continue to stay steadfast in your approach in teaching mathematics and providing solutions. I bought your book, and love the fact you provide it freely online for all to use. Your approach addressed all of the concerns I had in my initial post and I see your book maintains mathematical rigor. This is honestly a breathe of fresh air. Thank you again. You are truly serving the ones that want to learn.

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