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I no longer understand my PhD dissertation

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Re: I no longer understand my PhD dissertation

#51

Post by ghaff »

sampo wrote: post #37
closure wrote: post #11

This does not surprise me in the least. Math was always extremely easy for me growing up. Up through my first differential equations class I found almost everything trivial to learn (the one exception is that I always found proving things difficult). I made the mistake of minoring in math and that slowly killed my enjoyment of it. Once I got to differential geometry and advanced matrix theory it all just became too a…

> Up through my first differential equations class I found almost everything trivial to learn Mankind hasn't yet figured out a good way to teach the first Differential Equations course. The first serious Calculus course introduces some level of rigor and formalism, but this alone is not sufficient for Diff Eqs. And the DE courses are typically leaning towards applications, so they tend to succumb to the "fiddle these…

It's been a while but I think this is true of a lot of introductory courses in general, like Organic Chemistry. "Trust us and memorize these rules the basis of which will become clearer down the road."

Re: I no longer understand my PhD dissertation

#52

Post by vinceguidry »

csense wrote: post #14

TLDR: The author independently re-discovered what you may know as Old Code Syndrome. I think that's because mathematical papers place too much value on terseness and abstraction over exposition and intuition. This guy's basically in the position of a fairly new developer who's just been asked to do non-trivial update of his own code for the first time. All those clever one-liners he put into his code made him feel sm…

I started taking readability very seriously once I started going back to extend old code and finding I couldn't immediately understand what it was doing.

Now, if I have that problem, it's now two problems. The original problem, and the readability problem. The readability problem is solved first, and the original problem can only be solved afterward.

I don't see comments helping me, I could spend the time better by making better method names, better local variable names, extracting methods, ensuring that lines do not run off of the screen.

Maintaining my old code got significantly easier after I started doing this.

Re: I no longer understand my PhD dissertation

#53

Post by ridgeguy »

csense wrote: post #14

TLDR: The author independently re-discovered what you may know as Old Code Syndrome. I think that's because mathematical papers place too much value on terseness and abstraction over exposition and intuition. This guy's basically in the position of a fairly new developer who's just been asked to do non-trivial update of his own code for the first time. All those clever one-liners he put into his code made him feel sm…

Not just code.

When you design anything - a rocket engine, an immunoassay product, whatever - it should be part of the work to document the assumptions, calculations, and rationale for the design to a degree that somebody skilled in the art could follow your work when you're gone.

Re: I no longer understand my PhD dissertation

#54

Post by KKKKkkkk1 »

If you find yourself saying that you gained nothing from your education other than soft skills, maybe you should have passed over the functional analysis part and put the effort directly into learning said soft skills. I'm in the same boat, and I can see how it can be hard to admit this.

Re: I no longer understand my PhD dissertation

#55

Post by zzleeper »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #4
hnarayanan wrote: post #2

As a PhD in spplied math, I must say I concur wholeheartedly with the author. The true value of a PhD in a quantitative field is less about specific domain knowledge, and more in the set of general problem solving skills you pick up.

This raises an interesting question. Is the PhD process the best way to acquire those general problem solving skills? Or is there a better way to learn them?

I was thinking the same thing.. 5-7 years is an insane amount of time (and money) to spend just to get better general problem solving skills.

Re: I no longer understand my PhD dissertation

#56

Post by rjzzleep »

gjulianm wrote: post #42
csense wrote: post #14

TLDR: The author independently re-discovered what you may know as Old Code Syndrome. I think that's because mathematical papers place too much value on terseness and abstraction over exposition and intuition. This guy's basically in the position of a fairly new developer who's just been asked to do non-trivial update of his own code for the first time. All those clever one-liners he put into his code made him feel sm…

> I think that's because mathematical papers place too much value on terseness and abstraction over exposition and intuition. If it only happened on mathematical papers... It is all over the place, in books, classes, etc. Few professors tell you what are they doing and why; they just throw formulas, theorems and symbols at you. Intuition is not given its necessary importance, first because it's hard to grasp some con…

In Germany you get to your advanced courses for the last two years of High school. I picked Math and Physics.

We did a bunch of linear regression(with maple?) i believe. And some manual differential equations. I was one of the best in that class, but when I asked what we need this stuff for the other people in the class looked at me and said the following:

"if you ask this question you're in the wrong class"

I went on to study engineering, and i guarantee you the other two still don't know what that stuff is good for. They learned the formulas by heart and then went on with their lives.

I mean it was fun for me, it was basically a coding exercise. And I was happy because I was faster than everyone else, but I didn't get why we were doing it.

The same actually bothered my about the studies. Just one example: folding is a fairly easy concept. But for some reason they first want to drill it into your head, you learn a bunch of techniques and then if you're lucky and you stick with it, eventually it clicks and you'll realize why in a completely unrelated class.

Why can't we just provide a simple real life example first and then go on explaining the details?

Aren't things easier to grasp when you can have a real understanding/connection to it? Isn't that precisely why people that learn coding at home tend to be better than those that just studied it, because they were told it's a solid profession to study?

I think with a good example and visual representation you can probably teach most of the stuff that's taught in Uni to young kids. But then you would be forced to admit that you wasted a lot of time during your own life, who'd want to admit such a thing.

Re: I no longer understand my PhD dissertation

#58

Post by musesum »

I had a similar problem with a crypto presentation. Basically, I was angling for a free ticket to an expensive conference. The trick was to propose something that is plausible, but too arcane for practical use. The consolation was a free ticket. Problem was that they accepted the talk. Damn!

So, I started to read crypto journals. Basically anything co-authored by Chaum, Micali, Goldreich, Wigderson. After a few weeks, I starting to get the hang of it. Sort of like learning a new language. So, I gave the presentation and then forgot about it.

A few years later, I decided to show my powerpoint to someone and describe the process. WTF? How did this lead to that? Didn't understand half of it. Was really embarrassing.

Re: I no longer understand my PhD dissertation

#59

Post by lkrubner »

He writes:

"Mathematics is an excellent proxy for problem-solving... Mathematics, by its concise and logical nature, lends itself to problem-solving (it is not unique in this regard)."

But how can we be sure this is true if is unable to read what he wrote?

Maybe I'm thinking about the way Clojure programmers tend to use the word "concise" -- concise is meaningful only if it contributes to readability. Otherwise the more accurate description is "terse". And terse does not lend itself to problem solving.

Re: I no longer understand my PhD dissertation

#60

Post by brudgers »

The Sheetrock was the last step. I myself would do the exterior and interior painting. I told Ted I wanted to do at least that much, or he would have done that, too. When he himself had finished, and he had taken all the scraps I didn't want for kindling to the dump, he had me stand next to him outside and look at my new ell from thirty feet away.

And then he asked it: "How the hell did I do that?" --Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake

I find the experience common when I look back on things I write or design or build. As Bill Gates said, “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”

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