In general, understanding ideas and concepts is essential in learning most courses. These brilliant thoughts handed down from our forerunners are the pith of their knowledge as well as the knowledge contained in the courses. Learning programming in the realm of computer, for example, the most important points are those seemingly basic but thoughtful ones, such as OOD (Object Oriented Design). This concept brought up by the precursor in the computer programming field tells us how to view the process of programming in a completely different way that every object have a representation of Class, with the C++ Language particularly.
Furthermore, a good understanding of ideas and concepts helps a lot in solving problems. After all, solving problems is a process of applying the related concepts into practice. After gaining a general and deep grasp, we could look at the problems from various angles, where innovative thoughts come from.
On the other hand, facts also play a very important role not only as large amounts of knowledge, but also an aid of comprehending the ideas and concepts related. Even in the subjects such as mathematics which are mostly ideas and concepts, basic facts should be memorized. Also, as ideas and concepts are abstract, which means hard to understand, related facts could be a great help in comprehending them.
As to the question which of the two is more important, in my opinion, the former one i.e. understanding ideas and concepts would be my choice. The relationship between the understanding of ideas and concepts and learning facts is similar to that of brain and hands. Both of our brain and hands are important but they are acting different roles. Without brain, hands won’t work. Similarly, without ideas, you can merely gain the skin-deep perception of subjects such as mathematics.
[ 本帖最后由 telly.bbs 于 2008-5-2 14:28 编辑 ]