posted
Blayne: There isn't a name, and that you haven't figured this one out shows that you need to think much harder about what people write.
quote: And he's this way in part because there are people on Hatrack who don't seem to care about him that are willing to answer his questions for him.
I think this is nonsense. While waiting and seeing if someone realizes how to research things works for certain very motivated, very intelligent students like many on hatrack, it is fairly clear there are issues Blayne has with picking up techniques like that on his own, combined with teachers of less than full competence who fail at teaching those techniques. I believe he is better served by being shown a variety of techniques to learn from. After all, people have long learned how to answer questions like this one when they had no internet, and frequently no way to "look up" the way to do the problem other than being shown by a teacher.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: Now to figure out an easy way to add up all of the positive integers of n for larger numbers like a d100 as adding up 100 + 99 + 98... will probably take a while.
Whats the version of Factorial called where they're adding it up to find the sum and not finding the product?
just the name, I dont need a demonstration.
It doesn't have a name. But it has a simple solution.
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posted
In my Advanced Algorithm's class I recently had to find out what that is called, when I realized the number of iterations the algorithm I had designed was a sequence of n+(n-1)+(n-2)+...+1.
I found that out in a few minutes of googling when I encountered it. I knew it was a common problem I'd encountered in school (6th grade I think), but couldn't remember the name of it, and so it wasn't especially easy for me to find. I considered, momentarily, asking hatrackers what the name of the problem was in a Mayfly. I guess now I'm awfully glad I didn't.
Now I'm as big a critic of Blayne as most of you guys normally, but I feel to some extent you're being a bit harsh here. We just had a thread like last week where a few of the smartest members of hatrack couldn't immediately come up with expected value of dice roll with n sides. They weren't scorned or mocked for it. Just because you've encountered something before in your studies doesn't mean you'll be able to recall the answer immediately.
posted
Blayne, I have noticed that you have a very linear mind. You look at a problem like "how do I sum all the positive integers of n" and you immediately look at the obvious method -- adding up the positive integers, one by one. And then you stop.
But let us instead imagine that this is a puzzle of some sort, one for which the walkthrough has not yet been posted on the Internet.
So let's look at what happens when you add just two numbers of n. If they're just two adjacent numbers in sequence, like 3 and 4, it doesn't tell us much. But perhaps there is a combination of numbers we CAN add that tells us more.
Perhaps we can think of n algorithmically, as if it were a set of items we had to access through repeated trips. Let's say that, on each trip, we have space in our imaginary car for just two numbers.
Is there any approach we can take, pulling out just two numbers each time, that tells us something revealing about this set? If just pulling out sequential numbers doesn't help us, perhaps we could look at the outer bounds of the set for clues...?
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posted
I could delete the formula, but I think it's fairly unreasonable to have expected Blayne to reason it out on his own. Some people can do that, with effort, but I think less of you could than you may believe. It's easy to remember something you learned when you were young and pretend that you would have discovered it on your own.
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posted
I agree with you that it's not necessarily harmful to Blayne to tell him the occasional answer.
But I DO think that, in this specific case, helping him to derive this algorithm on his own would be far, far more valuable to his future career than just about anything else we could do for him. I think it's really important that he, as a prospective programmer, learn to think about methods of accessing a set -- and why those methods might matter.
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posted
I'm amazed people here still think there's anything they can do to 'help' him be a successful programmer.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: I'm amazed people here still think there's anything they can do to 'help' him be a successful programmer.
I guess that depends on your definition of 'successful'. I've worked with many programmers who don't have natural talent or even possess a working knowledge of mathematic concepts.
They are "successful" in that they are pulling in very decent paychecks and steady employment. My name for them in my head is the "C-students", though obviously I have no idea what grades they got in their programming classes. It's more that I equate them to the students I encountered as an undergrad, who could struggle their way through the classes (often with help of brighter students) while a few (like me) breezed by fairly effortlessly.
I've found that in a reasonably sized application programming shop, they comprise at least 75-85% of the development staff. They aren't who you'd turn to for elegant or complex solutions, but they can write basic business / application logic and follow a code-by-numbers approach. So long as you have a few "A-students" on staff who can direct them, they are useful enough.
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posted
I forgot how to calculate expected values for n-sided dice in that RPG thread just a few weeks ago, and I've taken statistics at the graduate level.
IMO, it's more important to remember how to apply something correctly than it is to remember how to do it. You can look up a formula, but if you aren't cognizant of the basic assumptions on which that formula rests... well, "garbage in, garbage out."
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posted
I'm amazed that certain people seem to justify being a jerk to Blayne in this thread on the grounds that it is somehow going to help him. I understand the reasoning for not giving him an answer to his question, but that's no justification for claiming he's better off abandoning his chosen profession to become a plumber, or something like that.
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As a side note, I'd add that I think in the business world the ability to go find an answer is often more important than the ability to actually think it up oneself.
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Luckily for me and you Xavier is my internet cutout on me last night and in a hilarious case of giggles I refused to try solving it by resetting the router which 15 hours later was the only way I could fix it, so I have no idea what he wrote.
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I'm having trouble parsing that sentence. I guess I'll just go with "yes, that is lucky for me" and move along .
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*grin* Well, good. In all seriousness, look at what I wrote up there and think of it as a puzzle. If you're going to add a set of sequential numbers in as few trips as possible, and you can only pull out two numbers per trip, what two numbers can you pull out that might tell you everything you need to know?
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posted
Sometimes it helps to break down problems into small pieces, or perhaps even rephrase the problem to yourself. As it is, I have no idea how to do what you are describing because I don't understand the question.
quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: I understand the reasoning for not giving him an answer to his question, but that's no justification for claiming he's better off abandoning his chosen profession to become a plumber, or something like that.
The frustration here is based on heavily repeated trends that cause skepticism about the realistic potential for Blayne to be a real programmer. At some point people are going to start pointing out that he gives no confidence whatsoever to a public audience that he's doing anything but fooling himself and that he needs to get real.
I mean, not that it's as serious, but imagine if I repeatedly boasted about how my chosen career was to be a surgeon and then for the next few years I kept making threads asking things like 'what is triage guys??'
quote:but imagine if I repeatedly boasted about how my chosen career was to be a surgeon and then for the next few years I kept making threads asking things like 'what is triage guys??'
whattamigonnaget
Well, civilized adults will likely ignore you.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Blayne, I have noticed that you have a very linear mind. You look at a problem like "how do I sum all the positive integers of n" and you immediately look at the obvious method -- adding up the positive integers, one by one. And then you stop.
But let us instead imagine that this is a puzzle of some sort, one for which the walkthrough has not yet been posted on the Internet.
So let's look at what happens when you add just two numbers of n. If they're just two adjacent numbers in sequence, like 3 and 4, it doesn't tell us much. But perhaps there is a combination of numbers we CAN add that tells us more.
Perhaps we can think of n algorithmically, as if it were a set of items we had to access through repeated trips. Let's say that, on each trip, we have space in our imaginary car for just two numbers.
Is there any approach we can take, pulling out just two numbers each time, that tells us something revealing about this set? If just pulling out sequential numbers doesn't help us, perhaps we could look at the outer bounds of the set for clues...?
1 and 1000, 2 and 999, 3 and 998 ... etc? They add up to 1001, since they're pairs it means there are 500 said pairs, 500 * 1001 gives the total.
My brother points out that in calculus a discreet rate of change is f(x+1) - f(x) which is almost like the derivative, so n(n+1)/2 = all the numbers in N, though he skipped all of the in his words "the boring details" hes a Math major in McGill.
For an example of a d20
1 + 20 = 21 * 10 = 210 divide by 20 = 10.5 which fits with the by hand exmaple of average of a 1d6.
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quote:While waiting and seeing if someone realizes how to research things works for certain very motivated, very intelligent students like many on hatrack, it is fairly clear there are issues Blayne has with picking up techniques like that on his own, combined with teachers of less than full competence who fail at teaching those techniques.
I'm not saying let him flounder around without giving him any help at all. I'm saying stop just giving him the answers.
If you want to help, help him get to those answers with effort on his own. I've actually tried to do this with Blayne (with him whining the whole time that I wouldn't just give him the answer) just to have people come in and give him the answer, which hurts Blayne and ruins my effort.
Blayne needs to learn how to figure these things on his own, but there are two things to overcome there. One, as you noted, is that he seems like that he might be poorly served in the instruction he has gotten so far. But the second and more damning problem he has is that he really doesn't want to learn how to do things for himself.
Giving him the answer doesn't help him. As I noted, it actually hurts both of these.
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quote:Originally posted by Scott R: Well, civilized adults will likely ignore you.
Sure, for the first 30-40 threads.
Keep in mind that this is an observation of appearances and thread making habits, not actual potential to be a programmer, which I don't bother to guess at.
I'm not the one telling anybody to stop trying to be a programmer and go be a plumber just because of thread habits! Although these days if you could drop programming and pick up being a plumber that may entail a net increase in potential wages.
I mean, damn, son. Plumbers make a mint around here.
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posted
I'm probably biased in this regard. I would rather plumb than program. I actually abandoned programming and network administration classes spontaneously a number of years ago because I was starting to realize that even if I was good at it, I hated the work and the torpor-like feeling of gajillions of hours in front of a screen.
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posted
I should point out, as someone who helped run a plumbing company, that plumbing is not exactly devoid of math. To be a really successful plumber, you need to own your own business, and that requires understanding of accounting. Even to just do the job, you need more than just basic calculation skills.
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posted
I'd like to note I mentioned the technique of pairing the numbers at each end up in the second reply of this thread, hence my suggestion that Blayne read more closely
But yes, it is entirely possible for Blayne to be a programmer with no particular mathematical chops. However, Blayne, if you want to be a game programmer, I strongly suggest you take at least an upper level matrix/linear algebra course in the math department. Only with that level of understanding under your belt will you be able to be a game programmer of the sort you seem interested in being.
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quote:Originally posted by twinky: I forgot how to calculate expected values for n-sided dice in that RPG thread just a few weeks ago, and I've taken statistics at the graduate level.
"Have attended classes" might be the more accurate formulation. This is not a support for Blayne's ignorance, it is an indictment of your 'graduate-level' classes.
quote:IMO, it's more important to remember how to apply something correctly than it is to remember how to do it. You can look up a formula, but if you aren't cognizant of the basic assumptions on which that formula rests... well, "garbage in, garbage out."
I agree. But notice that Blayne hasn't got to the level of knowing what 'it' is, in the case of expectation values. Before you can apply X correctly, before you can even look up the procedure for X, you must at a minimum know that X exists!
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
quote:Originally posted by fugu13: I'd like to note I mentioned the technique of pairing the numbers at each end up in the second reply of this thread, hence my suggestion that Blayne read more closely
But yes, it is entirely possible for Blayne to be a programmer with no particular mathematical chops. However, Blayne, if you want to be a game programmer, I strongly suggest you take at least an upper level matrix/linear algebra course in the math department. Only with that level of understanding under your belt will you be able to be a game programmer of the sort you seem interested in being.
I plan to see if its possible to take those courses during my first semester.
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You will not have sufficient background to take an upper level matrix/linear algebra course in your first semester. That would be a long-term goal.
Heck, go ahead and link me to your university's course catalog and I'll tell you what the course options are that would be what you'd need to take.
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
the prereq for linear is highschool 536 advanced math (which i have) I'm pretty sure but Ill try to find it.
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quote:Originally posted by twinky: I forgot how to calculate expected values for n-sided dice in that RPG thread just a few weeks ago, and I've taken statistics at the graduate level.
"Have attended classes" might be the more accurate formulation. This is not a support for Blayne's ignorance, it is an indictment of your 'graduate-level' classes.
That I don't recall a formula is hardly an indictment of the classes. That was part of my point. I know to check for pitfalls and make sure I'm avoiding them before I start doing any analysis, in case there's a watch-out I've forgotten about -- which is quite likely, considering the volume of other knowledge I've filled my head with since the time when I first learned about the concepts.
The other part of my point is that while I felt silly for having forgotten such a basic concept, I wasn't ridiculed and insulted in the way that Blayne has been here. Even if I'd started a thread saying "hey, I've forgotten how to calculate the expected value of rolling an n-sided die," I'm confident I wouldn't have been met with remotely the same level of scorn and ridicule that Blayne has been subjected to here.
quote:Before you can apply X correctly, before you can even look up the procedure for X, you must at a minimum know that X exists!
So he came and asked the question. I'm not seeing the problem, beyond that Blayne comes and asks a lot of questions here rather than doing his own research. But he's hardly the only person to have done that here.
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quote:That I don't recall a formula is hardly an indictment of the classes.
True, but people were dinging me for personal attacks.
quote:The other part of my point is that while I felt silly for having forgotten such a basic concept, I wasn't ridiculed and insulted in the way that Blayne has been here.
You would have been if I'd been in that thread.
quote:So he came and asked the question. I'm not seeing the problem.
The problem is that there is a minimum level of knowledge you must have before you can ask useful questions. Asking about expectation values is a bit like asking how to look things up in a dictionary, or how to read.
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quote:That I don't recall a formula is hardly an indictment of the classes.
True, but people were dinging me for personal attacks.
quote:The other part of my point is that while I felt silly for having forgotten such a basic concept, I wasn't ridiculed and insulted in the way that Blayne has been here.
You would have been if I'd been in that thread.
By you, sure. But that hardly equates to the volume of scorn we've seen here.
quote:Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:So he came and asked the question. I'm not seeing the problem.
The problem is that there is a minimum level of knowledge you must have before you can ask useful questions. Asking about expectation values is a bit like asking how to look things up in a dictionary, or how to read.
It isn't at all like either of those things. Those things are universal knowledge; even a seemingly basic concept like expectation values is actually fairly specialized knowledge when you compare it to the overall set of knowledge areas. It doesn't surprise me at all that Blayne either hasn't encountered it before or doesn't recall having encountered it before because it was a long time ago.
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quote:However, Blayne, if you want to be a game programmer, I strongly suggest you take at least an upper level matrix/linear algebra course in the math department.
It was required that each student do so in my Bachelor's program, as well as up to Calculus III (3 dimensional calculus).
I went as far as getting the minor, which was strongly encouraged. I'm glad my program was set up that way.
The absolutely best class for any programmer to take, in my opinion, is an upper level math class called "Abstract Algebra". It was the hardest class offered in the Mathematics major (according to my Math major friends), but it all came very naturally to me. Succeeding in studying the concepts of the class trained my brain to think in ways that improved my programming skills better than any computer science class I took, I believe.
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posted
Is it bad that I can predict your entire line of argument from your first leading question? Maybe we've been hanging out in the same threads for too long. <3
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posted
I am seeing this "Everyone is being mean to Blayne" vibe again, but from what I can tell, it's KOM, who is just about always a jerk, Samp, who seems to aspire to almost always being a jerk, but is giving Blayne problems for his posting history, not about this particular problem, and me, who is saying mean, but true things about Blayne that are not really about expected values.
So, where are you seeing this scorn heaped on Blayne for not knowing expected values by anyone other than KOM?
I mean, you want to have a "Don't say anything mean to Blayne" complaint, go right ahead, but I don't think the tack you are taking really matches up with what actually happened on this thread.
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posted
I don't mean an introductory linear algebra course. I said advanced. You've talked about things like programming game engines. That's very different from scripting an existing game system (which is also an important part of game programming, but it doesn't sound like what you want to do). Programming a modern game engine well requires an advanced undergraduate/beginning graduate understanding of linear algebra (not that this has to be arrived at through classes, but that's easiest for most people).
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posted
I'd like to point out that it also requires a freshman-highschool level of understanding probability, which Blayne doesn't seem to have. First things first.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: I don't think the tack you are taking really matches up with what actually happened on this thread.
There was not one comment about the expected value mix-ups by me and others in the previous thread. Here we have two pages in not very much time. I think the main difference between this thread and the other one is that this one was started by Blayne.
I'm also not just talking about explicitly insulting comments.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: I'd like to point out that it also requires a freshman-highschool level of understanding probability, which Blayne doesn't seem to have. First things first.
In law, I'm told that there is a particular misapplication of statistics so common that it actually has a name: "the prosecutor's fallacy." If everyone coming out of high school had this "freshman-highschool level of understanding probability" that you're talking about, the prosecutor's fallacy wouldn't exist, but I think the reality is that people who understand these concepts are in fact not all that common.
Perhaps the prosecutor's fallacy never shows up in Norwegian courts, but I doubt that. I suspect it's more likely that your view of what constitutes a basic concept in statistics or math is coloured by your education level.
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quote:There was not one comment about the expected value mix-ups by me and others in the previous thread. Here we have two pages in not very much time. I think the main difference between this thread and the other one is that this one was started by Blayne.
Well, that and the purpose of the thread. This is a thread where Blayne is explicitly asking for help, which is different from a slight mix up on something tangential to the thread it occurred in.
But yeah, I'd agree that this is a major difference. It seems to me that people here shouldn't be expected to react the exact same way to every poster.
For myself, if you asked for help with something like this, I'd just tell you. I wouldn't try to get you to figure out for yourself or try to get other people to not to just tell you. I treated Blayne differently because he's a very different person from you.
And, I'm not seeing all that much scorn for Blayne on this thread, except from people who give scorn to most all comers. There's not a high amount of respect for Blayne, but high amounts of respect isn't something that Blayne has earned.
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What are you trying to accomplish with this, twinky? You know what I'm trying to do, but I'm not sure I see what you see coming out of your interactions here.
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posted
The prosecutor's fallacy is basically misunderstanding (or not knowing, or misapplying) Bayes. Bayes is not exactly difficult, but in my experience it is not taught to high-school kids, either. Calculating expectation values is, or at least I was taught it there. Knowing how to take an average won't save you from the prosecutor's fallacy.
A further point is that Blayne is a gamer. Expectation values over random distributions show up all the time in games. He is apparently telling us he doesn't (or didn't) know how to figure out which of two swords does more damage on average! (This is, incidentally, the way I learned to calculate averages, some years before getting formal instruction in it.)
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quote:I suspect it's more likely that your view of what constitutes a basic concept in statistics or math is coloured by your education level.
I think you're giving KOM credit for knowing a lot more about statistics than he's shown in the past. Based on his frequent mistakes about basic aspects of statistics, I doubt it's his education level that's coloring his comments.
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quote:There's not a high amount of respect for Blayne, but high amounts of respect isn't something that Blayne has earned.
It's okay to treat Blayne disrespectfully because this disrespect has been earned? One would hope that there is a base level of respect afforded to non-trolls.
quote:What are you trying to accomplish with this, twinky? You know what I'm trying to do, but I'm not sure I see what you see coming out of your interactions here.
I initially posted to add to X's comment about the other thread. It sparked a discussion. I didn't have a motive, but here's what I think: this thread would have been much shorter if Tom's response had been in the first few replies, whether it came from him or someone else.
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quote:It's okay to treat Blayne disrespectfully because this disrespect has been earned? One would hope that there is a base level of respect afforded to non-trolls.
I don't know about that. I didn't say anything about disrespect, but rather high amounts of respect. These are two very different things.
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Yeah, I get that that was your initial reason. What is your motive for this line of discussion?
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I'm not sure what comment of Tom's you are talking about. Is it the one at the top of this page?
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