I go from the article back to the HN comments, and discover that in fact Everybody knows how well homework works. Scott Alexander just asked the wrong people.

I go from the article back to the HN comments, and discover that in fact Everybody knows how well homework works. Scott Alexander just asked the wrong people. My impression is that it depends. I have got myself unstuck by doing every damn exercise in the book, checking the ones with solutions in the back, and seeing where I went wrong if I did. I have also seen terrible homework that was simply a time sink.