From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.1 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_05,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,529c1dc1e36f0ffb,start X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: "W. Wesley Groleau (Wes)" Subject: Learning Styles, Out of sorts, etc. Date: 1996/08/22 Message-ID: <9608221454.AA05217@most>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 175918452 sender: Ada programming language comments: To: info-ada%listserv.nodak.edu@emcee.com mailer: Elm [revision: 70.85] newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-08-22T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: 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. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 1010 Production Road (Mac): wwgrol@most.fw.hac.com Fort Wayne, IN 46808 (Unix): wwgrol@pseserv3.fw.hac.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------