OT: Programmers whos first language is not English

Andy Freeman anamax at earthlink.net
Mon Mar 17 03:49:01 EST 2003


Stephen Horne <intentionally at blank.co.uk> wrote in message news:<457a7v0q35edmauuicmkq3pc59lm9617g1 at 4ax.com>...
> On 16 Mar 2003 14:12:43 -0800, anamax at earthlink.net (Andy Freeman)
> wrote:

> >And, even that isn't enough.  You have to show that the specific "one
> >solution" is superior to the n solutions.
> 
> So what you're saying is that, before I do the *experiment*, I must
> have absolute proof that it will turn out a success?

Not at all.  I'm merely using the same tense that you used when
you wrote:
> If I have one solution to all of these problems, the existencee of
> alternate solutions to a few of them is irrelevant.

That statement is false; "one solution to n problems" isn't necessarily
superior to "more than one solution to n problems"; it's just fewer
solutions.  (Note that there may be multiple "one solutions", some
that are better than the best "more than one solution", some that
are worse.)

An experiment is one way to gather the relevant data to make that
call (wrt a specific "one solution").

Right now, I don't think that you have a better "one solution" to
a non-zero number of interesting problems.  I'm not convinced because
the example problems so far have been non-problems and/or problems
with "better" solutions than the proposed "one solution".  An
experiment might show that to be a problem with your presentation/
argument.  Or, there may be better examples.  Or, my preliminary
conclusion might be correct.

It's your baby - you get to do whatever work you think would be
most compelling.

-andy




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