The Black Box Method: How to Learn Hard Concepts Quickly

Summary

This insightful video by Colin Galen introduces an effective learning strategy known as the Black Box Method, which is designed to help individuals grasp hard concepts quickly. The method involves understanding the functionality of a concept without delving into its internal mechanisms. This approach is particularly valuable in fields like competitive programming where quick problem-solving is crucial. By treating complex algorithms and data structures as 'black boxes,' learners can use them effectively without fully understanding the intricate details. Over time, this method can be a stepping stone towards deep learning, offering a quick start in understanding and utilizing various programming techniques.

Highlights

• Colin Galen explains the Black Box Method, a shortcut to learning complicated concepts quickly. 🎓
• The approach uses existing libraries and codes as black boxes, focusing on outputs rather than understanding inner workings. 🔍
• It’s heavily beneficial for competitive programming, allowing quick adaptation and solution development. 🏆
• The method promotes incremental learning, bridging gaps in understanding while tackling multiple topics efficiently. 🌉
• Users can utilize this method to enhance their preparedness for programming contests or projects. 💪

Key Takeaways

• The Black Box Method enables quick learning by focusing on what a concept does, rather than how it works. 🕵️‍♂️
• In competitive programming, this method can save time and help solve complex problems efficiently. ⏱️
• Using pre-written code or libraries without fully understanding them is perfectly fine and often beneficial. 📚
• The method encourages practical application and problem-solving, enhancing learning through doing. 💡
• Black boxing allows learners to tackle many concepts rapidly, providing a strong foundation for further detailed study. 🚀

Overview

In his engaging video, Colin Galen demystifies the Black Box Method, a learning shortcut for quickly grasping complex concepts. By focusing on what a program or algorithm achieves rather than getting bogged down in how it works, learners can accelerate their understanding and application of new ideas. This method proves highly beneficial in fields like competitive programming where rapid problem-solving is indispensable.

Colin provides compelling examples and personal anecdotes to illustrate how black boxing can be used effectively. He discusses how this method allowed him to excel in programming contests by using advanced algorithms as tools without needing full comprehension of their internal workings. This approach not only saves time but also helps in practical application, enabling a faster and more focused form of learning.

The video is a treasure trove for programmers looking to enhance their skills efficiently. It emphasizes the importance of learning by doing and using available resources smartly. By integrating black boxing into their learning routine, individuals can better manage their educational journey, making the shift to more in-depth study as they gradually become more comfortable with complex topics.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 03:00: Introduction to Black Boxing This chapter introduces the concept of 'Black Boxing' as an effective method to quickly learn different concepts. The method is useful for both competitive programming and general programming, allowing the application of various techniques like algorithms, data structures, or code pieces. The chapter includes a hand-drawn cube illustration to represent the concept and highlights its frequent usage in practice.
• 03:00 - 05:00: Definition and Explanation In this chapter titled "Definition and Explanation," the narrator reflects on a personal experience during a competition. They highlight an instance where they applied an unfamiliar technique to solve a challenging problem. Despite only having a surface-level understanding of the method, it proved successful, earning them a tenth place and maintaining their high rating on CodeChef. The chapter underscores the commonality of using such intuitive methods in everyday programming.
• 05:00 - 07:00: Sorting Example and Library Use In this chapter titled 'Sorting Example and Library Use', the concept of a 'black box' is explored. A 'black box' is described as a piece of code whose functioning is not understood in detail but is known for its specific input-output operations. The chapter emphasizes that the understanding of internal mechanisms of such code is unnecessary, as users only need to focus on how to use the inputs and outputs effectively. The analogy is likened to the use of APIs or internal libraries where the focus is on usability rather than understanding the intricate workings.
• 07:00 - 10:00: Introduction to Fenwick Trees In the 'Introduction to Fenwick Trees' chapter, the concept of using pre-existing code to handle complex tasks is explored. The chapter begins with an analogy of how programmers often rely on pre-written code for certain tasks, such as input and output handling, which can be seen as a form of hidden magic. This reliance allows developers to focus on utilizing the results rather than the process. The chapter then provides an example common in programming: array sorting. It highlights how programmers often use internal algorithms from programming language libraries to perform sorting tasks efficiently, without needing to fully understand the underlying processes. The chapter emphasizes the practicality and power of using established code frameworks to handle routine operations in programming.
• 10:00 - 13:00: Learning Strategies and Advantages of Black Boxing This chapter provides an overview of sorting algorithms, emphasizing their role as fundamental learning tools in programming education. It highlights the common practice of learning at least one viable sorting algorithm due to its importance in introductory programming courses. While understanding sorting algorithms is beneficial for developing algorithmic thinking, the chapter also mentions that using library functions for sorting can be a practical alternative, thus introducing the concept of 'black boxing.' Black boxing allows programmers to use complex functionalities without understanding their inner workings, which can be advantageous for focusing on higher-level problem-solving rather than implementation details.
• 13:00 - 17:00: Personal Experiences and Success Stories The chapter titled 'Personal Experiences and Success Stories' discusses the concept of using library functions in programming. The narrator explains how calling a single function can perform complex tasks internally, which simplifies the programmer's job as they do not need to understand the intricate operations happening within these functions. Similarly, the chapter touches on the usage of Fenwick Trees or Binary Indexed Trees, important data structures in competitive programming, illustrating the importance and efficiency of utilizing pre-existing functions and libraries for problem-solving.
• 17:00 - 20:00: Libraries and Resources for Black Boxing The chapter titled 'Libraries and Resources for Black Boxing' introduces the concept of a black box operation on an array, which supports two main operations. First, a user can select a specific index in an array and add a value to it. Second, the user can query the sum of the first few elements of the array. These operations are explained as quick, taking only a few seconds to understand.
• 20:00 - 23:00: Conclusion and Recommendations The chapter concludes with a discussion on the efficiency of a particular algorithm, highlighting its complexity of O(log n) and O(n) for initialization and memory usage. Despite the complex underlying bitwise logic, the author notes that understanding this intricacy is not required for practical use. The author admits to not fully grasping the details either but reassures that it has not hindered solving numerous problems. Recommendations emphasize focusing on application rather than the detailed inner workings of the logic.

The Black Box Method: How to Learn Hard Concepts Quickly Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 hey guys this is going to be a video on essentially an effective method to learn many different concepts quickly this method is dubbed black boxing and as you can see here i've hand-drawn a cube to represent this if you like this so this allows you to apply many different techniques like algorithms data structures or just pieces of code in general and it works for competitive programming or even just general programming because there's a lot of similarity between the two and the way the method is used so in particular i've used this a lot
• 00:30 - 01:00 during some contests of mine to get uh where i am now with a significant example being how i use that to solve a quite hard problem with a technique i didn't even know much about only a brief overview of what it did and that ended up getting me tenth and saving my seven star rating on code chef so yeah this method works and in fact this is something we generally use all the time in general programming without even thinking much about it
• 01:00 - 01:30 so what even is a black box well we can pull up wikipedia's definition as support but essentially it just means that it's some piece of code that does something and we understand what it does but not really how it does it it's sort of like they say it's viewed in terms of its inputs and outputs but not the internal mechanisms that are converting that input into the output and the reason we don't understand what it does the reason we don't understand how it does it is because we don't need to like many apis or internal libraries
• 01:30 - 02:00 like we already use for many portions of our code like input and output for example we let the pre-written code do the hidden magic and only worry about what we do with the results and the cool thing about programs is that you can literally just copy and paste some piece of code in and regardless of how much you understand it it's still going to work so let's take a very common example of sorting an array for many languages we use an internal algorithm to sort an array some part of the programming languages library and
• 02:00 - 02:30 just as a brief refresher if it's unfamiliar to you sorting is just reordering elements in some kind of increasing order and i'm also so proud of this cube drawing that i'm going to keep it here for this example so often in general we do learn how this algorithm works sorting or at least some viable sorting algorithm just because it's like one of the common introductory things to programming and it's often a good exercise but it's not necessary to use the library like a
• 02:30 - 03:00 single function call does all the work for us i mean all we do is we call some sorting method or function and that's it we don't worry about what's going on inside and other library uses work the same way we simply use their functions without implementing them ourselves a different example is feminic trees are binary index trees which is a topic and topic from competitive programming so if
• 03:00 - 03:30 you already know these great then it's a good example and if you don't then that's fine and the whole point of this is that it will only take me like a few seconds up to a minute to explain it so the quick black box description of what it is is it basically operates on an array it supports two different operations the first is that you can pick some index some position in the array and add some value x to it and the second is that you can query the sum of the first x elements or the first i elements both of these operations
• 03:30 - 04:00 take over log n complexity and um it's o of n to initialize and oven memory overall and that's it there is some complicated underlying bitwise logic that makes it work but to use it none of that is actually necessary to know and in fact i honestly don't even understand it myself because i've never bothered to because it's never been necessary and nonetheless i've solved many many
• 04:00 - 04:30 problems using this technique so my template which is the code you can see below or in front of you is sort of structured like an api where these add and query functions are just simply using the struct and telling it to do that so now let's pull out the trusty paint for a demonstration and if you're new to this channel well i basically use it for everything so that will be how it goes in this diagram vertical distance represents time and
• 04:30 - 05:00 basically the standard strategy for learning is to pick some list of topics and then learn them one by one however this is rather slow and during the period of learning for the topics that you haven't even looked at yet you won't know anything or much about any of them so say some contest comes and you'd want to do it because the contest and contests are always good for you to learn from which i made a video on um essentially you're not going to be able to do
• 05:00 - 05:30 anything maybe you know enough about topic a which you've learned some about to be able to do it but for topics for concepts b and c you're just totally screwed there's nothing you can do you don't really know about them so if those show up there's nothing you'll be able to do so it's sort of bad in the intermediate step but now let's introduce black boxing which is much closer to the unknown side of things because it doesn't take that much time to learn it
• 05:30 - 06:00 it's an easy gap to cross versus learning an entire thing now say i black box all three of the concepts before starting to fully learn them not necessarily as a substitute for learning them just as a start and i think this should be the way that black boxing is used it's still a good idea to eventually learn things because it's sort of going to be necessary if you ever want to make modifications to something which does show up somewhat frequently but it's a good first step and it will let you be informed about all the algorithms and
• 06:00 - 06:30 data structures and everything that you're interested in using so this black boxing may also involve solving a few problems or just playing with a bit playing with it a bit getting a bit of practice just get comfortable and the plan is to eventually learn them of course but just starting with these techniques as black boxes is a good enough introduction to them now in this scenario say the contest happens and i've already blockboxed these three and i'm in the process of learning concept a but i'm already at the point
• 06:30 - 07:00 where i'm able to use all three concepts effectively so i know enough about all three of the topics to solve the problems that use them so i do and i do much better on this contest potentially if it has these topics then if i hadn't used the black boxing and i got some practice out of it because now i know these problems are going to use these concepts so blackboxing is basically like an intermediate step except it has no drawbacks you're going to learn this stuff anyway
• 07:00 - 07:30 so it can really only benefit you and the benefits are still really good so let's talk advantages why is this useful it definitely works very quickly in that the information required to use something is much less than the information required to fully understand something as you could have seen from my previous examples it took like maybe around a minute or two just to explain the black box rendition of some concept especially for rather hard topics ones
• 07:30 - 08:00 that can take like hours or even multiple days to learn and grasp this saves a lot of the work at least initially it allows you to have most of the necessary information very quickly and then when you decide to learn it later you'll be able to solidify that knowledge later on as you formally learn things so if you encounter a problem related to something you're not so well versed in perhaps you have it black boxed in your head but you don't exactly exactly understand it yet at the very least you do know what to look for you know that this was the concept involved you're just not that good at that
• 08:00 - 08:30 concept yet so it lets you sort of figure out where you should go from a certain point it also allows you to identify related problems as you come across them so yeah when you do eventually learn something you already know places where you can practice and apply it you've already found some practice problems for yourself by just having the black box and recognizing that a certain problem requires a certain concept it will ultimately keep your learning focused because you already know what
• 08:30 - 09:00 everything is doing you know what the purpose of it is all you're doing once you transition from having something black boxed to learning it normally you're just figuring out how it works you already know what it does you already know everything that's required to use it you're just understanding the internal mechanisms of it and also on that note when you understand the underlying purpose of something and you really like acquainted with it it makes it a lot less scary to learn it for real because you know the end result already it's just figuring out how it gets there
• 09:00 - 09:30 now this wouldn't be one of my videos if i didn't take every opportunity to flex so here's some examples from my own experience where this this black boxing has actually worked for me as i mentioned in the beginning there was one where i used i used a complicated concept that i didn't really know much about to get 10th place in a contest and again retain my seven star rating and this was an example of using a suffix array which is a complicated yeah like i said a complicated concept it's not really related to this video so
• 09:30 - 10:00 you don't have to know it to understand this but the point is that i essentially had this black box i understood what this algorithm did and what it produced but had no idea how it worked and just because of that i was able to copy paste it and make it work and yeah as as like clearly it worked out uh two other examples one of them was where i actually learned something in contest using a very cool library called the app
• 10:00 - 10:30 coder library and this library is nice because it's sort of it like it describes things in a black box way where it tells you the un where it tells you the functions and what it does and their complexities and everything you'd ever need to know to use it but it doesn't need to give details on the code so it's very useful for someone who's taking the black boxing approach because it gives you exactly what you need for everything so i actually learned this thing in contest and then was able to
• 10:30 - 11:00 solve the problem using it and yeah that that worked out too and then a separate example is the a even harder algorithm called the convex hall trick which is essentially something i've been using for a long time i made a stream on it without even understanding how it works just because black boxing was so effective and i also did i also saved my rating in another hard code chef contest by copy pasting convex hold trick
• 11:00 - 11:30 in that and that got me i believe 13th so showing this code if you'll notice the only thing that the only things that really matter are the two functions insert line which will insert a line even if you don't understand what that means it's just simply there are two functions that control everything and everything else is internal the insert line and eval functions are the api and everything else is magic for all i know so a bit of advice on the practicality
• 11:30 - 12:00 of using the black box method i mean how would you even find working code without having to understand and produce it yourself right well as it turns out there are plenty of well-tested and useful libraries that contain code for a lot of different things i'll include all these in the description but um a brief overview of what some of them do the app coder library or acl is a working and a very broad library with sort of black box style documentation they give the complexity and the utility the functions what the
• 12:00 - 12:30 what the code does but not necessarily how the code works because it's not necessary so it basically aligns exactly with how black boxing works there's a site called cp algorithms which gives and by the way cp is for competitive programming not the other meaning of the acronym but it gives both code and explanations up for it and um but the important thing is that is that it gives full code without any sort of like necessary interpretation most of the
• 12:30 - 13:00 time some pages aren't perfect but most of the time it will give full code there are also some other basic libraries like cacto i believe that's how you pronounce that and also a library by ben q one of the top competitive programmers currently second on cohorts he's pretty good and if you want i also have my own library with some stuff but it's uh not how do i put this it's not too friendly for anyone who isn't me so possibly i'll clean it up in the future but i would recommend using some of the other ones instead of mine
• 13:00 - 13:30 and i'm sure there are also probably plenty of others that you could find on the internet all right so that's block boxing and whether you choose to use it or not is totally up to you but i would say it can't hurt for sure it takes a really short time like mere minutes for a single topic and it involves information that you would eventually need to have anyway when you're learning something because it's the utility it's what the thing actually does and it also gives
• 13:30 - 14:00 you a brief but sufficient sufficient for using it introduction to topics allowing you to use them much quicker than you'd be able to if you decide to learn them all fully in sequence now if you're also looking for some place to try and learn these things there are some of the websites i mentioned above but to self-promote a little bit because i have to shove that in too i also go over various topics on my channel so you may want to check the rest of that out and potentially subscribe if you maybe want to possibly potentially
• 14:00 - 14:30 and yeah um sorry that's all i have yeah see you guys