
"I Know Kung Fu" - zackattack
http://zacharyburt.com/2011/04/i-know-kung-fu/
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telemachos
First, that scene is a huge part of what makes the first Matrix fun. Thanks
for reminding me of it.

Reading this reminded me of something that I've thought of a number of times
but don't have fully worked out. (I.e., bear with me for a minute if I
ramble.) We need a better way to describe the parts of (many) skills that lie
between 'thought' and 'muscle memory'. (Maybe some researchers already have
better ways?) The only sport that I was ever expert at was pool. For many
years in my 20s, I played at least twice a day for anywhere from 1 hour to 3
hours each time. (I was in grad school. First stretch was post lunch, usually
shorter. Second stretch was out at bars post evening work. How long depended
on how many people I beat.) Eventually I reached the point where I would
shoot, pick up the chalk, rechalk the cue slightly and _already_ be walking to
my next shot. I didn't really think about all this and it wasn't exactly
muscle memory (as the grip, stance or swing is muscle memory). But I knew
where the cue ball would end up, and I knew what my next shot (and ideally,
two, three or more forward) needed to be and I would move towards that spot
intuitively.

Wayne Gretzky has the famous quotation: "A good hockey player plays where the
puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be." That's
the thing I wish I could describe better. It's _not_ pure thought (it's barely
conscious thought at all, usually), but it's also not physical training only.
It's both - combined with a very clear mental picture of the domain you're
dealing with. (Cf. what people always say about Larry Bird "seeing the whole
court" at all times.)

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chegra84
Ok, I'm guessing the purpose of the post is exploring efficient methods of
learning quicker.

Personally, I say tons of examples and exercises to test that you understood
said examples.

For instance, someone gives you an api, but only gives you an explanation of
the parameters. It is left to you now to figure out how exactly this api
works(Does it take the full file path?, Is it the printer ip or the printer
name? Is the array associative?) Now if I wanted to figure it out, I would
draw from my experience how things like this normally works. Normally, it is
two or three choices for every parameter and you fiddle with it until you
figure out the correct format for what you are doing. So, with 4 parameters
that is like 16 combinations, which aint so bad.

Now, if the creator of the api, had given an example of each unique way of
using his api, learning the api would be much easier. Since now instead of
debating what each parameter means and how to supply the given format, he can
simply copy the example format[O(n)vs O(2^n)]. Learning without examples is an
exponential function. Learning with examples is a linear function and learning
matrix style is constant time.

[Did I just reduce all learning activities to be a function that takes
parameters and to efficiently learn is to find an efficient algorithm to
figuring out the best parameters?]

