Solution of linear system is one of those problems that you should program yourself to learn the methods. But there are so many edge cases and details that you have to rely on libraries for production.
I work in academia and have over 70 papers published.
I Agree with most ideas in the article.
Another dimension not covered is what I called “author engineering”.
Many times it is very difficult to “get into” a new field if you don’t have an author known by the editors. I work in applied math (very transversal) and happen to me often to be rejected because “I don’t belong to the area”.
PhD students usually don’t suffer from this as the supervisor is already a member of the community. But if not, try to bring a collaborator that is known in the area. This is usually done in conferences by chatting with people.
This kind of animal glues have some nice properties than “white glue” miss, e.g. you can remove it with heat. Traditional woodworkers still use it. You can buy it today:
https://www.fine-tools.com/oberfl.html
I’m building a travisher [1]. Both wooden body and iron.
I found it amazing the importance of the small details in old woodworking tools and how toolmakers solve problems and improve tools. Particularly in very simple tools.
Back in the nineties… I set the country of my ICQ account randomly. It was Vanuatu.
One day someone contacts me and ask “are you from Vanuatu?”, so I checked and she was from Vanuatu! So I tell her the truth: “I’m not. Are you?”
And she answers “No, I’m from Venezuela, I missed my country by one in the config...
Later I searched for people on Vanuatu and we two are the only ones“
:)
Please read "Story of your life" by Ted Chiang. A beautiful story that involves a discussion of Newtonian and Hamiltonian formulations.
One of the best stories I have read.