Re:Doesn't make you a good student (Score 1)

Your are completly right when you say that programing is "an extension [..] for thinking". My point was that the problem seems to be constructed for being solved without programing. Employing a computer on this task is like the behaviour of these moron managers who need an assistant for switch on the VCR, stating "that she will do it better that I would". Implementing this problem is undoubtly an interesting little task. As you point out, "you have to solve the problem conceptually in your head, and then write the code". Besides implementing this as an excersise, one will notice that as soon as your have finished this preparation the paper-pencil method will stare right into your eye. If you go further and implement this without noticing you are perhaps too ignorant to find any solution to harder problems. Using brute-force is (usually) a bad idea, such as tool-stacking is. A clever person uses the tools that will help him to solve a problem in the most efficient way. In this case, so I still believe, it is paper&pencil. (doing it in the head turned out to be too error-prone:-)