On 2010-02-04 17:46 PM, Ethan Furman wrote:
Robert Kern wrote:
On 2010-02-04 14:55 PM, Jonathan Gardner wrote:
On Feb 3, 3:39 pm, Steve Holden<st...@holdenweb.com> wrote:
Robert Kern wrote:
On 2010-02-03 15:32 PM, Jonathan Gardner wrote:
I can explain all of Python in an hour; I doubt anyone will
understand
all of Python in an hour.
With all respect, talking about a subject without a reasonable
chance of
your audience understanding the subject afterwards is not explaining.
It's just exposition.
I agree. If the audience doesn't understand then you haven't
explained it.
On the contrary, that explanation would have everything you need. It
would take an hour to read or listen to the explanation, but much more
than that time to truly understand everything that was said.
Like I said, that's exposition, not explanation. There is an important
distinction between the two words. Simply providing information is not
explanation. If it takes four hours for your audience to understand
it, then you explained it in four hours no matter when you stopped
talking.
And if it takes six months? Would you seriously say it took you six
months to explain something because it took that long for your audience
to understand it?
At some point you have to make the transition from person A explaining
and person(s) B understanding -- they don't necessarily happen
synchronously.
Then it's exposition and understanding, not explanation and understanding.
--
Robert Kern
"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
an underlying truth."
-- Umberto Eco
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