tcs-13 Programming Correctness

Programming Correctness

Stop overanalyzing!

Take this quick test:

QUESTION:    How do you put a giraffe in the refrigerator?

ANSWER:       Open door, place giraffe in refrigerator, close door.

QUESTION:    How do you place an elephant in the refrigerator?

ANSWER:       Open door, remove giraffe, place elephant in refrigerator, close door.

QUESTION:    The lion king is holding a conference with all the animals in the jungle, which animal is not there?

ANSWER:       The elephant; he’s in the refrigerator.

QUESTION:    You are in the jungle and come to a river where crocodiles live and need to cross what do you do?

ANSWER:       Swim across — all the crocodiles are at the lion king’s conference!

Yes, you could have paused to ask if the fridge was big enough to hold the entire giraffe. Would you have to fold it? Chop it up into giraffe steaks?

Irrelevant. There is a point to be learned here: All the information needed to answer correctly was contained in the story itself.

The Keys:

Stop overanalyzing your responses.

Too many times in competition we look for answers from outside the ring — outside the immediate situation.

Start to look inside the situation for the answers.

In other words, live in the now. In a true-life self-defense situation you will ONLY have the information that’s at hand at that moment. The sum total of your knowledge may be that you’re being attacked.

Learn to sort what is relevant / important from what is not, and discard useless information.