[steno132]

The best people I work with don't use this stuff. They solve problems based on pattern matching.

Having read hundreds of books and papers over the years, no problem seems new to them. They can rapidly find a solution, especially compared to someone trying to derive a answer from first principles like Polya suggests.

[felipefar]

I believe pattern matching works best when solving problems with little variation from previous ones.

Novel problems requires a lot more maturing and thinking, which is when slower, longer term thinking like Polya suggests goes a long way.

[hgsgm]

If what you say is true, why did it take so long to prove Fermat's Last Theorem?

Polya's book is distilling hard fought PhD wisdom into a book children can understand.

It's for solving novel hard problems, not trivial ones.

[raincole]

The best people the GP worked with are probably not capable to solve Fermat's Last Theorem at the first place...