I’ve taken a lot of programming courses at university, and now I’m taking some more math and proof based courses. I notice that it feels considerably worse to not fully understand what’s going on in Real Analysis than it did to not fully understand what was going on in Data Structures and Algorithms.
When I’m coding and pulling on levers I don’t understand (outsourcing tasks to a library, or adding this line to the project because, “You just have to so it works”) there’s a yuck feeling, but there’s also, “Well at least it’s working now.”
Compare that to math. If I’m writing a proof on an exam or a homework, and I don’t really know what I’m writing (but you know, I vaguely remember this being what a proof for this sort of problem looks like), it feels like a disgusting waste of time.
I’ve taken a lot of programming courses at university, and now I’m taking some more math and proof based courses. I notice that it feels considerably worse to not fully understand what’s going on in Real Analysis than it did to not fully understand what was going on in Data Structures and Algorithms.
When I’m coding and pulling on levers I don’t understand (outsourcing tasks to a library, or adding this line to the project because, “You just have to so it works”) there’s a yuck feeling, but there’s also, “Well at least it’s working now.”
Compare that to math. If I’m writing a proof on an exam or a homework, and I don’t really know what I’m writing (but you know, I vaguely remember this being what a proof for this sort of problem looks like), it feels like a disgusting waste of time.