Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Not quite 'Rain Man', but impressive

At dinner tonight, I was explaining how I did some code complexity analysis today and found a class with a complexity number of 39 versus the project average of 1.8. Serious nerd talk, sure, but that's not the point of this here post. Somehow this nerd talk led to the question "what is 39 divided by 6?" I asked Andrew, age 6, if he could figure it out. Here's a play-by-play.

Brad: So what is 39 divided by 6? can you figure it out?

Andrew: Hmmm. (pause...some mumbling) "36...What's 39 divided by 3" (a brief pause) "13...so what is half of 13...there is no half of 13!"

Brad: "There is a half of 13, it's just a number and a half."

Andrew: "Hmm... (brief pause) 6....six and a half."

Brad: "So what is 39 divided by 6?"

Andrew: "Six and a half."

Brad: "Awesome, buddy! How did you learn how to do that? Did someone teach you?"

Andrew: "No, I just figured it out by myself."

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