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Learning the ABCs or Reinventing the Wheel?I actually wanted to create a trackback to my friend Thite’s blog titled “Talking about I hate Ellipses!!!”, which in turn is a trackback to my blog “I hate Ellipses!!!”, as his blog title suggests. But sadly, his blogs are not public and so trackbacks cannot be created. This is a blog on his blog. If u are in his msn list, do read his blog before this one.Thite, we always have argued on this front, i think, for all of the 5 yrs that we know each other. I guess we are just putting it up in black n white after all.Going to other extreme point of your perspective: We all know to read write learn and talk. A baby will eventually learn to do the same. Does that mean that the baby need not learn ABC?Read the complete blog here.Sagar’s blog can be found here: http://spaces.msn.com/members/sagyer/
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If my memory serves me right, (that, and I am too bored to go and see what I actually wrote), I did say in the end that it is all a compromise. One has to learn some basic things even if they have been done before. Call it the foundation, or as you say, learning the ABCs, or whatever. The point is, who decides what is reinventing the wheel, and what is learning? I wrote that the person who is learning cannot decide, cause for one, he does not know himself, and two, if he knew, he would try and learn as little as possible. So, then, this is a compromise indeed, in which we allow someone else to define our ABCs.
I remember I often used to crib when I was forced to remember statistics of say, the population of say, Venezuela in my high school geography. I thought it was not of any use. Pretty true, considering that I have never ever in my life (uptil now, that is) have to use it. Not even in that year’s examination. But, that statistic is not a burden for someone who is a ardent follower of statistics or geography. For him, it is another interesting tid-bit. Just like for me, some computing stats are, or some parameter might be. Wake me up in the middle of the night, and ask me the shortcut key for save in Turbo C, I will instantly blurt out F2, courtesy couple of unsaved crashes! But someone who does not have a keen interest in programming, will, even on using the IDE and programming, not necessarily remember the shortcut. Maybe that was too lame an example, but I hope you get the point. It is all thus a matter of interest.
Thus, in conclusion, what is, is. A compromise. Peace.