From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@ricochet.net)
Date: Sun May 13 2001 - 23:20:37 MDT
Adrian Tymes writes
>Alternately, if people would just try to write some simple
>simulations, or try a few direct experiments for things that
>can't easily be simluated, when they have spent years beating
>their brains out about a particular problem in a near void of
>actual data, much insight could also be gained.
Yes. Quite right. I apologize for what I wrote. (I was in a
very bad mood, and still need to learn not to write email when
I'm like that.) Not only should you write a program when you've
(temporarily) given up working on a problem, but, depending on
many factors, one might find the program more edifying.
The only danger that I know of, is that getting the answer
sometimes causes people to believe that they understand the
answer. Looking up the answer to an exercise in the back of
the book is exactly the same: while often you oughtta, just
to make some progress, there still lies before you the goal
of actually understanding the exercise.
Lee
At 08:58 PM 5/13/01 -0700, you wrote:
>Lee Corbin wrote:
>> If people put one-half of the effort of writing
>> even a simple simulation into carefully thinking
>> about the problem, they'd learn something. But
>> it's more fun to just write code than to think.
>
>Alternately, if people would just try to write some simple simulations,
>or try a few direct experiments for things that can't easily be
>simluated, when they have spent years beating their brains out about a
>particular problem in a near void of actual data, much insight could
>also be gained.
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