On Tue, Aug 6, 2019 at 10:45 AM Bryan J Smith <[email protected]> wrote:
> I would argue that while these things can be learned in 10 minutes, > 'muscle memory' and 'from experience' takes at least 3 hours ... likely > spread over 3 days.** > Sorry, forgot my "**P.S." ... - bjs **P.S. Anyone here ever use a RPN (reverse polish notation) calculator? <ancedotal=ON> I grew up in a civil engineering household in the late '80s, and I never understood why my father used his HP 48C, like other models before it. RPN just didn't make sense to me. So here I am, engineering freshman in college in the early '90s, and I've got my Casio -- for Millennial/Zoomer arguments sake, imagine you're using 'Galculator' on Linux or 'RealCalc' on your phone (or similar) -- and I'm tired of writing things down and doing 'intermediate steps.' So I literally take my Classical Physical II (calculus-based) homework and force myself to use the brand new, unused HP 48G my parents bought for me for Christmas. After 10 minutes, I learned the basics, but it took me 3 hours with that 1 homework assignment to 'muscle memory' it. By day 3, I refused to use a regular calculator ever again, and I couldn't live without my 'stack.' I never, ever wanted to do anything with more than 2 operators in anything but RPN again, and I preferred to do even simple calculations on the RPN stack because I could keep feeding it all sorts of various changes. This continues thru today as I do network, storage and other calculations for sizing and capacity, performance, etc... I don't expect non-engineers to use RPN, but for engineers who consistently handle equations with more 2 operators, once you learn it, you never go back. I mean, there's a reason why we engineers have HP RPN calculators, or Galculator or RealCalc in RPN mode, even if non-engineers don't see the sense for them. I feel strongly the same with Vi when it comes to interactive GNU/Linux sysadmin. Because sometimes it's the only way to get things done efficiently, let alone the only tool available. If people don't know it, they are going to have issues in their career if they are 'interactive' sysadmins, let alone it should be tested as 'muscle memory.' So, again, I'm a self-aware 'old-fart' and I'm telling you to learn RPN. I fully admit that, but in many cases, there's reason us 'old farts' are done with our homework and exams much faster, because we know RPN ... like Vi. And yes, even basic Vi is pretty powerful, it doesn't have to be ViM. </ancedotal>
_______________________________________________ lpi-examdev mailing list [email protected] https://list.lpi.org/mailman/listinfo/lpi-examdev
