In my previous post I maintained that reasoning like a mathematician helps in order to grasp the history of mathematics. Here I shall support a complementary claim which is less obvious: knowing important developments in the history of mathematics facilitates mathematical comprehension.
The first chapter of my 2016 book Turing Tales is made available here. I explain my methodological stance on the history of computer science, and introduce the topic of "conflations," which I believe is key to understanding the history of science and technology.