One day Shizuo Kakutani . . . was teaching a class at Yale. He wrote down a lemma on the blackboard and announced that the proof was obvious. One student timidly raised his hand and said that it wasn’t obvious to him. Could Kakutani explain? After several moments’ thought, Kakutani realized that he could not himself prove the lemma. He apologized, and said that he would report back at their next class meeting.
After class, Kakutani went straight to his office. He labored for quite a time and found that he could not prove the pesky lemma. He skipped lunch and went to the library to track down the lemma. After much work, he finally found the original paper. The lemma was stated clearly and succinctly. For the proof, the author had written, “Exercise for the reader.” The author of this 1941 paper was Kakutani.
OK but that still doesn’t help me go from “I know the difference between integers and floating point variables and how to make loops” to “Hey Mom here’s a new house I bought with my stock options from my startup”
Then what’s the class C passenger vehicle license of coding that everyone needs to survive in the modern world from teenagers to grandparents? I just want to drive a sedan from point A to point B, maybe pick up a piece of furniture from Costco or a litter from soccer practice in an SUV once in a while.
