"The absurdity of this style of learning math hit me squarely between the eyes in my post-secondary education. In a statistics class I once approached my professor, asking for help. “What sorts of practice problems should I be drilling?” I asked. She looked at me like I was from the moon. In her French education, she had (apparently) not learned math in this way. “Go somewhere, lie down, and daydream about it for a while” ended up being her advice."
This is the only part of the article which seemed odd. Surely you benefit from ability to make a bunch of transformations in your head, without having to go to a computer?
In other words, if computer in Distil does that kind of thinking which is necessary faster than the author - heck, if it can do that at all - I want to work in Distil. Still didn't get it? I'm definitely not talking about rot summation and multiplication.
So jealous of French education now.