Re: [SAGE] Computer Sciences degrees in IT

[Jonathan Billings <billings@negate.org>]

Jon 'maddog' Hall wrote:
>> I will accept that there is a thing that you are describing which is 
>> very useful (in our field as well as many others), although I 
>> disagree as to your choice of names.
>>
>> I think that Creativity is probably the best name I've come up with 
>> so far for this desirable thing that you appear to be describing, 
>> although others may well be able to come up with better names.
>>
> 
> I can see your point about "common sense", but I can not quite buy the
> word "creativity".  "Creativity" can generate many, many answers for a
> problem, but the art of rapidly sifting through all of those (or never
> generating them at all) to find that one "elegant" answer is what I
> think we are looking for.
> 
> Anyone else have a definition or a word to describe this better?

Intuition?

This thread reminds me of Elizabeth Zwicky's talk at LISA, "Teaching 
Problem Solving: You Can and You Should".  In particular, someone who is 
highly intuitive might have a hard time teaching a new sysadmin the 
steps taken to solve a problem.

-- 
Jonathan Billings <billings@negate.org>