4 ms·

Project Euler style puzzles: Yes. Jigsaw Puzzles: Not so much.

• iamcreasy 10y ago
  Yes, I find it a little weird that the author tried to reconcile two different things. Finding the perfect grey piece among hundreds of other similarly sized grey pieces isn't equivalent to finding/optimizing a math problem.
  • VLM 10y ago
    Perhaps an analogy with cryptographic one way functions would help. The point being that in both scenarios the highly ordered single one correct answer is easily transformed into a pile of obfuscation yet the conversion back "solving it" is extremely hard and mostly measures patience, experience, and memorization skills more so than raw mental horsepower. Take for example the first project euler "puzzle". There is exactly one bit of memorized information being tested for... do you, or do you not, already know that its possible to solve "sum of a sequence (of multiples or whatever)" using a simple formula, Gauss style, not by manually adding all the numbers? Then apply it by adding the multiples of 3 and the multiples of 5 and subtract the double counts (aka the mults of 15). Its just testing for memorization of one concept, maybe verifying you can plug and chug apply a simple rule. Its not testing sheer mental horsepower or ability to do math, but have you memorized a possibly apocryphal anecdote about young Mr Gauss's early education? There's nothing wrong with hiring plodders IF that fits the workload.
• michaelcampbell 10y ago
  Eh, sometimes. Euler relies on a lot of math, or math tricks, that is simply not necessary for a vast majority of today's computing. It used to be that programmers were needed for a lot of number crunchy things, but I've found at least in the "business world" (as opposed to academia, or perhaps startup), most computing is simply moving data around, and storage and retrieval.