Then I must not have explained myself clearly enough. I'm not talking about extra equipment, I'm talking about information that's not needed for the solution to the problem.
Recently (for some definition of "recent") I was setting an exam question. In it I gave various lengths, heights, and so on, and I was told that it was too hard because I gave details that weren't required. On the other hand, if one is given only the information required, there is already an artificial clue - all the information given must be used. That's unrealistic.
I've interviewed people for jobs who performed fantastically well on exam style questions, but when given free-form problems simply didn't know where to start.
For me, whether a solution is clean and elegant is independent of whether you've used all the information given. It's the solution itself that's elegant. It's not only plausible but likely that we have different concepts of elegance - I'm a mathematician. When solving math problems, real math problems such as required to get a PhD or publish a paper, there's no way you're given just the information required and no more.
Along those lines I've been moved to submit another puzzle - you can find it here:
Recently (for some definition of "recent") I was setting an exam question. In it I gave various lengths, heights, and so on, and I was told that it was too hard because I gave details that weren't required. On the other hand, if one is given only the information required, there is already an artificial clue - all the information given must be used. That's unrealistic.
I've interviewed people for jobs who performed fantastically well on exam style questions, but when given free-form problems simply didn't know where to start.
For me, whether a solution is clean and elegant is independent of whether you've used all the information given. It's the solution itself that's elegant. It's not only plausible but likely that we have different concepts of elegance - I'm a mathematician. When solving math problems, real math problems such as required to get a PhD or publish a paper, there's no way you're given just the information required and no more.
Along those lines I've been moved to submit another puzzle - you can find it here:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1014092