Thou shalt have no other gods before the ANSI C standard 1513

The two of you may have just uncovered why we're having this discussion-argument-disagreement.

I know (permitting me, please) that in my own experience sometimes I truly do have no idea how I arrived at a solution to a problem. If asked, the best I can come up with is "Oh, it came to me while driving home." or some such lame answer. I've always accepted that, somewhere in my mind something I don't understand was processing the problem and worked it out and delivered me the answer. Intuition based on experience but also based on study. One of the reasons I keep reading books on the subject is to give that intuitive part of my mind material to work with.

Other times, I can explain, to various degree's of precision, what I did and how I worked out the solution.

And, of course, it's often not an "either-or." Intuition may tell me to try a particular approach first, then intellection will be used to analyze why it didn't work, or didn't work as well as I'd hoped. Or it may be an intellection first. Or if it's something really new (to me) I may hit the books or the net first for research on the subject. It may go round and round to all three as I approach a solution. I find that most of my fellows* work in a similar manner.

- Bill ------ * "fellows" meant gender-neutrally.