> Except if you consult with colleagues/friends outside of your company you would get fired
What the hell are you talking about? I routinely consult with others and others routinely consult with me. That's afaik standard practice in most professions: engineering, medicine, architecture, psychology, marketing, and yes software development.
You share confidential information with colleagues outside your job? I guess how much or what consulting you can do depends a lot on your job. I know quite a few companies which don't allow talking about specific problems you are facing because that would reveal information they consider confidential. Now if we are talking general questions, sure but you are very much allowed to do the same as a student. All this to show that sharing information/solutions has quite a gradient even in professional life.
Again: what the hell are you talking about? We were talking about professional consulting, not about sharing confidential information. These are two very different activities, and you can definitely do one without the other.
The statement saying "if you consult with colleagues/friends outside of your company you would get fired" is false.
We are replying to a post which said cheating in education is what is consultation in professional life. Nowhere did we talk about general "consultation" we comparing copying others solutions (cheating) to "consultation", I would argue that the equivalent of copying someone's specific solution in many (most) cases would be a violation of ethical/company/workplace rules and is not just "consultation".
Asking someone for help with homework (much more equivalent to general consultation) is not generally considered cheating in education either.
Absolutely, the equivalent of cheating is 'not just "consultation"', but in your original message you said "if you consult..." without qualification. And no, you don't get fired for "consulting" alone. Right below you already changed your statement to "they are rules in professional life about how you consult with others". Let's maybe leave it at that? This doesn't seem like a productive discussion and is entering flamewar territory.
I assumed it was clear from the parent I was replying to (like others did), that I meant my statement in the context of how they said it's equivalent to what's called cheating not a general statement about all consultation, but you're right I should have made that more clear.
You are also correct that this is not a productive discussion, because we are discussing a misunderstanding (due to me not being clear enough).
I did find your language and reaction a bit disproportionate though.
I don't think so, grandparent was definitely talking about general consultation, and on your second post you clearly say you mean that all but the most generic kind of consultation is a fireable offence. But happy that we got to a common ground.
We are all replying to a post that said what is considered cheating in education is simply consultation in professional life. I responded that they are rules in professional life about how you consult with others. In other words there are rules about consultation in both education (there is usually no issue about studying together, but there are issues about just copying somebody else's homework) and professional life (e.g. a doctor can't just share a specific medical file with anyone asking for a solution, or an engineer can't ask someone at a different company to program some program for him).
> I responded that they are rules in professional life about how you consult with others.
No you didn't, you said "if you consult with colleagues/friends outside of your company you would get fired", which is clearly false. I'm the one who said rules should be followed. But I'm happy that the mistake was corrected and we're now on the same page.
What the hell are you talking about? I routinely consult with others and others routinely consult with me. That's afaik standard practice in most professions: engineering, medicine, architecture, psychology, marketing, and yes software development.