Talk:Trial and error

Focused trials

TRIZ is a useful alternative approach to discovery. It differs markedly.

Praising error

Every time we attempt something we have a trial. If anything goes wrong in the attempt, we have an error. This makes trial and error exceedingly common in our lives. One curious effect is that when we succeed, then we have learned nothing new; that was what we expected. Yet that is the preferred and desired result.

We don't like it when we fail, but if we are wise, we will take each failure as an opportunity to learn something new. Thus, in a sense, failure is more valuable than success, in the long term. One formulation of this happy fact is Karpinski's maxim, "Anything worth doing, is worth doing badly, at first."

Jeff Raskin added those last two words before he included it in his seminal book, "The Humane Interface". Then it made more sense to him. I had previously preferred to let listeners ponder the absurdity of my claim for a while as a kind of zen exercise.

In fact, a central feature of venture capital in Silicon Valley, that hotbed of innovation in electronic technology, is that when you have failed in your first attempt to start a valuable company, you are not considered a worthless loser. Instead, to the venture capitalists on Sand Hill Road in Palo Alto, you are now an experienced executive, suitable to be funded to start another company.

We could even claim that failure is good for the soul. It teaches humility, and many lessons of what to beware of. Yet this view, so valuable in high technology ventures, is held very few places in the world.

--- Since TrialAndError is also used as a heuristic method in a scientific context. The introductory sentence

"It is an unsystematic method which does not employ insight, theory or organised methodology."

appears to be inconsistent with the rest of the article.

Therefore I made the following tentative edit:

"It is an unsystematic method which does not **(necessarily)** employ insight, theory or organised methodology." 178.26.156.159 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 22:42, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Agreed that the sentence is problematic but even revised doesn't add anything to the article. I propose removing it entirely.

Karpinski (talk) 00:51, 11 April 2008 (UTC) guess and check —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.109.147.205 (talk) 04:28, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Reframing adjectives

Trial and error is the process by which all life is derived. Calling it "primitive" in the first sentence is inaccurate. It is a fundamental process embedded in any attempt to solve a problem. Contemplativebeing (talk) 01:47, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree. Good thinking! However, it's your own thinking, and not supported by a WP:reliable source. Now the sentence was unsourced to start with, so I'm fine with you changing it. But if you would have a source to back up the "fundamental method of solving problems", that would be great. Because sooner or later, unsourced content will be changed into sourced content. You're new here, so please tell me if anything I just wrote was unclear to you. With friendly regards! Lova Falk talk 08:10, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

I have added a reference. Thank you Lova_Falk for facilitating this new user! Contemplativebeing (talk) 01:45, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

You're very welcome! Now, if you could also add the author or editor of the book, and isbn-number, that would be great! Lova Falk talk 07:42, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Braille

Sathvik 2405:201:C020:8196:816D:928D:6C0:BD80 (talk) 10:04, 28 September 2022 (UTC)