Learning Styles, Out of sorts, etc.

Learning Styles, Out of sorts, etc.

[W. Wesley Groleau (Wes)]

What is the subject now anyway?

Tim B., you are confusing two not-identical issues.

If I program quicksort in assembly and it works, you would be justified
in assuming that I both (1) understand quicksort, and (2) worked very hard
on eliminating the types of errors that are so easy to do in assembler*
So hard work and understanding the algorithm seem to be necessary to
successfully implementing it in assembler.

But that is NOT the same as "assembler is necessary to understanding the
algorithm!"

The recent offering of C and assembler code for "swap" does NOT help
me understand "swap" !  All they help me understand is whether someone
has implemented "swap" correctly or not.  And I can find that out without
knowing C or assembler because I learned what "swap" meant years before
I ever HEARD the word "computer"

I once detected and diagnosed a hardware fault in a VAX that had escaped
the system diagnostics.  I had NO exposure (still don't) to VAX
architecture nor at the time to CAX assembler.  I had only three tools:
a VT terminal, a Pascal compiler, and the alertness to notice an error
in the ABSTRACT output of my ABSTRACT level program.

Yes, my experience with various assemblers, with electronics, with
mechanics, etc. have contributed to whatever success I have achieved.
But the reason is not the additional low-level skills from those years, it
is that by THINKING and OBSERVING and REASONING and ABSTRACTING and
GENERALIZING and SYNTHESIZING and INNOVATING and (etc.) during those years,
I exercised and developed my ability to do those capitalized things.

The same sort of exercise would have occurred if I had been a detective
on the police force or a traffic engineer in Manhattan.  (The latter is
probably even MORE of a challenge!)

I do NOT need to know assembly to know what "swap" means!  And if a French
   speaker asks me, "What means swap?" I am not going to show him/her the
   assembly or the C or the Ada or the pseudocode--I'll merely say,
   "It means 'troquer' or 'echanger'"

Similarly,
I do NOT need to understand a three-speed hub to use the gears effectively
on a bicycle.  I 'grokked' the ABSTRACTION of the speed-power tradeoff
long before I learned the implementation.

I do NOT need to understand a power steering mechanism to avoid the ditch.
     (And though I'm still clueless about the implementation, I have no
      problem detecting a failure and compensating for it.)

I do NOT need to understand friction or hydraulics to apply the brakes.

I do NOT need to understand chemistry to bake bread.

I could go on and on with that list, but other people already have, and
it's not sinking in.

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W. Wesley Groleau (Wes)                                Office: 219-429-4923
Senior Software Engineer - AFATDS                         FAX: 219-429-5194
Hughes Defense Communications (MS 10-40)                 Home: 219-471-7206
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