Yesterday I told you about a debugging method I like to call exorcism, and how, until recently, I thought I had invented it. Then let me tell you a story.
Today I was at my parents’ house. That was tea time and I was talking to my father about the fact that I discovered that “exorcism” was actually a common practice. My father never went to college. He even stopped his studies in tenth grade (we call it “seconde” in France). Nevertheless he always helped me with my math problems when I was in high school, and even after. But today when I told him about exorcism he said : “That’s exactly what I’ve done with you when you were in high school. Every time you came to me with a math problem I used to sit down and listen to you, but I never understood a word of what you said! Neither the problem nor the solution! The thing is that you needed to rephrase the problem out loud to find a solution, and as I’m pretty good as a listener…”
Wise man.