4 ms·

I think rote memorization is less useful in engineering than critical thinking/problem solving, that is probably why. It's not really important you know X value

by ehnto 5y ago

I think rote memorization is less useful in engineering than critical thinking/problem solving, that is probably why. It's not really important you know X value of Y part by heart, you need to know how to get X value of any possible part you encounter. To learn a language, you can't problem solve your way to the solution, you either know it or you don't, and when you use it in practice (in a conversation) you can't look up what you need to know on the spot.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
im3w1l 5y ago
Memorizing facts is necessary to make them accessible to your critical thinking and problem solving though. Like it's much easier to find a connection between two things you know about compared to two things you could look up.
wpietri 5y ago
We're not talking about rote memorization here. We're talking about deeply studying something. In the mid-90s I set up my then-employer's first WAN. Cisco 2501 with T1s for in-city links and frame relay for inter-city/international. As part of our Cisco contract, we got a full manual set, which was maybe 24" of shelf space. In my spare time over a couple of weeks, I sat down and read the whole thing. Then I went back and actually studied the parts that were relevant, mostly by reading and re-reading until it all made sense to me. On top of that, I added a lot of practical experimentation with the gear. But foundational for me was really understanding the perspective of the people who made it.
- wpietri 5y ago
  For what it's worth, I think this "deep study" mode of learning is perhaps less useful today in tech. We have a lot more things we need to work with with now, and a searchable internet means we can draft off other people's learning a lot more. Deep understanding is both less possible and less useful for the bulk of us, who are mainly integrating lots of libraries, services, tools, and frameworks. But for every given topic, we still need deep experts, like Bruce Dawson was for this processor at Microsoft. So I think this mode is still very valuable, so I agree with Ciantic: this way of learning is something everybody should have at least some practice in.
  - thereddaikon 5y ago
    What he is describing is just RTFM. It shouldn't be groundbreaking or really up for debate yet here we are. Manuals are written expressly for this purpose. A properly written manual has everything you need to know to get it working in a practical sense. Theory is a different matter altogether. But we are talking about engineering not science. Engineering is very much in realm of practical application. If reading a manual front to back for a bit of tech doesn't tell you everything you need to know to use it properly then its not a good manual.
    - onemoresoop 5y ago
      This applies well for some manuals and poorly for others. When technology changes fast you're likely to read a lot of deprecated stuff. It's an unfortunate state of affairs we find ourselves in.
      - thereddaikon 5y ago
        It doesn't even have to move fast. There are plenty of vendors who are just awful at their documentation even when given all the time in the world.
    - ehnto 5y ago
      I think it is my fault, I misunderstood that the GP meant RTFM where available essentially. Though I think it's still relevant, as what is clear to me now is that a lot of us are working with tech that has no true manual, just reference docs, which is a poor substitute for a real user manual. My argument was essentially that you gain very little from memorizing reference docs. Reading a good manual is definitely invaluable on the other hand.
      - thereddaikon 5y ago
        That is sadly the case. So much documentation is incomplete or out of date to the point of uselessness.
  - 5y ago
- tomcam 5y ago
  Aargh the thing that amazes me about people like you is the ability to push through when the docs don’t explain something before it’s referenced. How do you get past that point so quickly?
  - wpietri 5y ago
    On the first pass? I usually just let it be. Maybe I'll mark it or make a note, but probably not. I've spent my whole life not understanding almost everything right away. If it's important, it'll come up again. It's sort of like starting a new job: you don't know who everybody is right away but you get it over time. On later passes, I'm more inclined to jump around.
    - tomcam 5y ago
      Thank you! I never tire of learning how people learn.
  - tanseydavid 5y ago
    It is important to develop the confidence that you are not actually wasting time reading something which feels as if you understand almost none of it. It is counter-intuitive because it tends to feel a little bit like a small child who has not yet learned to read, picking up a book and pretending to read by mimicking what the behavior looks and sounds like.
- ehnto 5y ago
  Ah, that is different then yes. I think another comment alluded to it but much documentation these days is just simple reference material which without context is only so useful for deep understanding. I fully agree with understanding the perspective of the people making the thing, knowing the what isn't always as useful as knowing the why. I speak a lot about being idiomatic, which is to say developing in a way that is sympathetic to the system and its existing approaches. That takes understanding the why more than the what. I am reminded of the Honda motorcycle maintenance manuals. They are like being face to face with the engineers who designed the bike, reading that back to back would give you that deeper understanding of the system I think. That's my pet peeve with auto-generated docs, they don't actually help much. I can see the function for myself, I don't need to be told it exists, I need to know why!
kryogen1c 5y ago
> I think rote memorization is less useful in engineering than critical thinking/problem solving i think this is exactly the right take in entirely the wrong direction. proficiency and mastery are about committing more and more complex things into sub- or un- concious action; muscle memory as it were. grandmaster chess players dont think about solving puzzles that stump novices, they absorb whole board states and many/all permutations instantly. BJJ black belts dont have to think about arm bars, they anticipate complex possibilities of moves and countermoves that a novice simply cannot fathom. this is as true in engineering as any other field. a simple litmus test: is there a difference between a college grad and a 40-years experienced engineer? of course there is I think GPs point is exactly right. there is a certain lost magic to simply smashing your brain into something and absorbing as much as possible. big eyes, big ears, ego to attempt but humble to fail. one might call such a person a hacker. edit: see The Art of Learning, Waitzkin https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0743277465/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0743277465/
- ehnto 5y ago
  I have pretty much the same outlook as you have described, so it's notable that we disagree at least a bit on this point of memorization. I think this is my fault as I misunderstood the GP a bit in my reply. But I would suggest in some ways that practice is different to memorization in some interesting ways. Memorizing a manual on motorcycle riding wouldn't make you a good rider if you have never ridden a bike, and you can become a better rider without it, but it would prepare you for the topics involved and you would likely be far more effective at absorbing the learning from the practice having read the manual. In other instances memorization is a foundational requirement, like language learning. Can't leanr a word if you don't know the alphabet, for example. In that sense practice only serves to reinforce the memorization it is the memory that is most important to being effective in that case.

by ehnto 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

im3w1l 5y ago

Memorizing facts is necessary to make them accessible to your critical thinking and problem solving though. Like it's much easier to find a connection between two things you know about compared to two things you could look up.

wpietri 5y ago

We're not talking about rote memorization here. We're talking about deeply studying something. In the mid-90s I set up my then-employer's first WAN. Cisco 2501 with T1s for in-city links and frame relay for inter-city/international. As part of our Cisco contract, we got a full manual set, which was maybe 24" of shelf space. In my spare time over a couple of weeks, I sat down and read the whole thing. Then I went back and actually studied the parts that were relevant, mostly by reading and re-reading until it all made sense to me. On top of that, I added a lot of practical experimentation with the gear. But foundational for me was really understanding the perspective of the people who made it.

wpietri 5y ago
For what it's worth, I think this "deep study" mode of learning is perhaps less useful today in tech. We have a lot more things we need to work with with now, and a searchable internet means we can draft off other people's learning a lot more. Deep understanding is both less possible and less useful for the bulk of us, who are mainly integrating lots of libraries, services, tools, and frameworks. But for every given topic, we still need deep experts, like Bruce Dawson was for this processor at Microsoft. So I think this mode is still very valuable, so I agree with Ciantic: this way of learning is something everybody should have at least some practice in.
- thereddaikon 5y ago
  What he is describing is just RTFM. It shouldn't be groundbreaking or really up for debate yet here we are. Manuals are written expressly for this purpose. A properly written manual has everything you need to know to get it working in a practical sense. Theory is a different matter altogether. But we are talking about engineering not science. Engineering is very much in realm of practical application. If reading a manual front to back for a bit of tech doesn't tell you everything you need to know to use it properly then its not a good manual.
  - onemoresoop 5y ago
    This applies well for some manuals and poorly for others. When technology changes fast you're likely to read a lot of deprecated stuff. It's an unfortunate state of affairs we find ourselves in.
    - thereddaikon 5y ago
      It doesn't even have to move fast. There are plenty of vendors who are just awful at their documentation even when given all the time in the world.
  - ehnto 5y ago
    I think it is my fault, I misunderstood that the GP meant RTFM where available essentially. Though I think it's still relevant, as what is clear to me now is that a lot of us are working with tech that has no true manual, just reference docs, which is a poor substitute for a real user manual. My argument was essentially that you gain very little from memorizing reference docs. Reading a good manual is definitely invaluable on the other hand.
    - thereddaikon 5y ago
      That is sadly the case. So much documentation is incomplete or out of date to the point of uselessness.
- 5y ago
tomcam 5y ago
Aargh the thing that amazes me about people like you is the ability to push through when the docs don’t explain something before it’s referenced. How do you get past that point so quickly?
- wpietri 5y ago
  On the first pass? I usually just let it be. Maybe I'll mark it or make a note, but probably not. I've spent my whole life not understanding almost everything right away. If it's important, it'll come up again. It's sort of like starting a new job: you don't know who everybody is right away but you get it over time. On later passes, I'm more inclined to jump around.
  - tomcam 5y ago
    Thank you! I never tire of learning how people learn.
- tanseydavid 5y ago
  It is important to develop the confidence that you are not actually wasting time reading something which feels as if you understand almost none of it. It is counter-intuitive because it tends to feel a little bit like a small child who has not yet learned to read, picking up a book and pretending to read by mimicking what the behavior looks and sounds like.
ehnto 5y ago
Ah, that is different then yes. I think another comment alluded to it but much documentation these days is just simple reference material which without context is only so useful for deep understanding. I fully agree with understanding the perspective of the people making the thing, knowing the what isn't always as useful as knowing the why. I speak a lot about being idiomatic, which is to say developing in a way that is sympathetic to the system and its existing approaches. That takes understanding the why more than the what. I am reminded of the Honda motorcycle maintenance manuals. They are like being face to face with the engineers who designed the bike, reading that back to back would give you that deeper understanding of the system I think. That's my pet peeve with auto-generated docs, they don't actually help much. I can see the function for myself, I don't need to be told it exists, I need to know why!

kryogen1c 5y ago

> I think rote memorization is less useful in engineering than critical thinking/problem solving i think this is exactly the right take in entirely the wrong direction. proficiency and mastery are about committing more and more complex things into sub- or un- concious action; muscle memory as it were. grandmaster chess players dont think about solving puzzles that stump novices, they absorb whole board states and many/all permutations instantly. BJJ black belts dont have to think about arm bars, they anticipate complex possibilities of moves and countermoves that a novice simply cannot fathom. this is as true in engineering as any other field. a simple litmus test: is there a difference between a college grad and a 40-years experienced engineer? of course there is I think GPs point is exactly right. there is a certain lost magic to simply smashing your brain into something and absorbing as much as possible. big eyes, big ears, ego to attempt but humble to fail. one might call such a person a hacker. edit: see The Art of Learning, Waitzkin https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0743277465/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0743277465/

ehnto 5y ago
I have pretty much the same outlook as you have described, so it's notable that we disagree at least a bit on this point of memorization. I think this is my fault as I misunderstood the GP a bit in my reply. But I would suggest in some ways that practice is different to memorization in some interesting ways. Memorizing a manual on motorcycle riding wouldn't make you a good rider if you have never ridden a bike, and you can become a better rider without it, but it would prepare you for the topics involved and you would likely be far more effective at absorbing the learning from the practice having read the manual. In other instances memorization is a foundational requirement, like language learning. Can't leanr a word if you don't know the alphabet, for example. In that sense practice only serves to reinforce the memorization it is the memory that is most important to being effective in that case.