I was about to post a long reply to this thread, but I envisioned a long argument with the O.P.

But after looking at that thread, I really think the unix.com policy should be to not help students with homework, no matter how "stuck" they say they are or how far along they appear to be. I know some past posts involved students posting what they had completed so far and you could tell they really were making every effort and were stuck. But I don't think their teachers would be happy if they could come to unix.com and have someone here finish their assignment for them, no matter how close they are. If the student is almost there, then I believe the teacher would much rather the student come to them so s/he can decide how and how much to help the student.

It's true they can still search unix.com and the rest of the Internet looking for answers, but at least they'll have to be critical about what they find and there's no one consciously just handing it to them..