;-)

Highly unlikely: Oxford's term isn't going to start until this coming Sunday, so we've not had any freshers around until today. If my experience is anything to go by (I know many people on the course), they'll just ask each other, or nearby passing strangers.

And the problem's to simple for the course, anyway. (When I started it, many years ago, day one consisted of "Here's the OpenWindows user guide and manual pages. You can figure it out from there!"

Hmm... that does sound a bit strange then. But I've now been given a name for the lecturer, so I'll get in touch with him.

Update: Ok, so the lecturer didn't know the student or the coursework. So I investigated a little further. The email I received came from a Yahoo address, but the header listed the IP address that it came from. This is in range owned by the University of Zimbabwe in Harare. I've now got in touch with their Computer Science department and am waiting for a reply.

virtualsue has just pointed out that the node on top of the Worst nodes list asks exactly the same question. And it was posted at the same time last year. Coincidence?

Update 2: I've just heard back from Dr Rose Shumba, the chair of the Computer Science at the University of Zimbabwe. She's on sabbatical in the US, but is very interested in the information and will pass it on to the acting chair to take appropriate action.

--
<http://www.dave.org.uk>

"The first rule of Perl club is you don't talk about Perl club."