LabVIEW
Are we really 'helping' students?
I won't speak for everyone but,....
As a community I believe we generally do identify the "Do my homework for me threads" fairly consistantly and do a pretty good job of encouraging those students to study and do thier own homework while still offering support for any skill gaps or flaws in their understanding of LabVIEW.
Am I 100% sure I've never done a student's homework for them? No, the number of responses I've posted almost garuntees I've let one or two "cheat off my paper." But, I try to keep them honest .
I'm sure I've been guilty of giving answers to those who are too lazy to do their own homework. I try really hard not to though. I will usually give an example to show a concept that will get them 50% the way there. I find a lot of students who are legitamitly trying are stuck on one or two concepts. And once they figure those out, they are good to go.
First I want them to try to think through the problem. Many of them won't even do that. And I refuse to help those people. There was one time I got so annoyed with somebody that I gave them exactly what they asked for, except I purposfully put in 3 or 4 major (but somewhat hidden) bugs.
I agree, most here don't just spit out working code to questions likely coming from students.
I, for one (as many here have surely noticed) do not hand up a slice of code at the first question of a likely student (few posts, new forum member, does not show what s/he has tried already, only posts to ask questions), and/or if I've seen a poster asking really basic questions before and the new question seems to be just a baby step further on their project. I'm also sure I seem quite terse in some of my answers, since I regularly just point to web tutorials for those whose questions imply that they are truly clueless. Again, as others, I'll often just try to quickly point students in the right direction. But, as crossrulz says, some are just stuck on a minor concept (been there, done that, I'm there now on a couple of things), and pulling them through that (sometimes kicking and screaming) can be satfisfying to both of us. If someone shows effort in solving a problem, I'll go at least halfway with them to do it. Hopefully, I'll even be right, and if I'm not quite there, I get corrected by the more knowledgable here and learn something myself. 
That said, there are a few here that will immediately post a solution for a poster's homework for them, knowingly. I don't think they're helping these students a bit, but I have learned, from being a college teacher for 26 years, that there are some cultures which actually condone or even promote this (even cheating on tests) for whatever reason, and neither the student nor his/her parents can see where I have a problem with it. As jmountney said, the people who raise these questions just looking for copy-and-paste answers to hand in are going to Darwinize themselves from the "gene pool" quickly when they are on their own in an exam, certification test, or job interview. Not the best situation, but such is life.
Cameron
Well, giving a solution, especially a surpisingly simple one is not necessarily a bad idea, especially after the student has struggled for a while. We can assume that the teacher also reads these forums and will know what kind of "solutions" are out there.
Maybe we should be more strict to always fill the documentation. A VI description that contains our name and date and a link to the original forum discussion would probably not be found by the beginning student, but can help the teacher evaluate the originality of the solution turned in by the student. 😄
In any case, the student needs to be prepared to fully explain the reason for every single diagram element of whatever he turns in, if he cannot, he should fail. Learning from example is a valid approach, why else would we have the example finder???
LabVIEW is hard, especially for the beginner, because there are often misconceptions about dataflow. Sometimes it is just the simple mechanics of wiring. For example they might accidentally turn off auto-tool and suddenly nothing seems to work anymore. 😮
A clean solution can give that little push ("Aha!!! moment"), after which things start rolling along just fine. We've seen it all here: A great student, that, after seeing a clean solution, takes it far and beyond, and the bad student who keeps struggling for days chewing on the simplest of concepts without getting anywhere. Not everybody can be a LabVIEW programmer.
If I would be teaching a LabVIEW class, I am pretty sure I could grade a student correctly, even if they turn in some stellar plagiarized homework. No cheating student can match programming style across all they submit and there will be a mix of diamonds and turds unless the student knows exactly what he/she is doing.
Most likely there will also be a final test where the forum is not available. A good introductury course should end in a CLAD-like quiz about all covered topics.
I believe our main mission is to get receptive students hooked on LabVIEW. We don't really care what will happen with the rest. They might pass the course, but will never touch LabVIEW again, so who really cares.
Prospective employers should focus exclusively on official NI certification anyway. These are hard and cannot be faked!
Thanks for the feedback, guys. Interesting to see the range of views on this one- all the way up to SABOTAGE! I can understand the frustration. 
I guess you can't make someone learn who doesn't want to learn. The students who put the effort in will gain even if we give them the whole enchilada, those who don't will learn precisely nothing either way.
"And once they graduate, we'll be working for them again "
Yup, at which point they will put the skills they learned here to work- that being the skill of claiming credit for out work. 
