alwayssortedlist (was Re: On PEP 322 (ireverse))

[Delaney, Timothy C (Timothy)]

> From: Alex Martelli [mailto:aleaxit at yahoo.com]
> 
> Ah, a British vs American nuance, I suspect.  "effective" 
> (according to 
> American Heritage) only means "it does the job" -- according 
> to the British 
> "Chalmers 21th Century Dictionary", it may also have such 
> connotations as 
> "producing a pleasing effect; impressive, striking".  Guess I 
> _should_ have 
> said "efficient" instead and avoided the "transatlantic 
> nuances" issue.

No idea what either the yanks or the poms say about it. Mine is an Australian point of view :)

For me, at a technical level, "effective" means that it does the job correctly. There are various levels of "effectiveness". My current project deals with discovering layer 2 network devices (among other things). For me, the level of "effectiveness" of the discovery is defined as the number of devices discovered out of the total number that are in the address range to be tested.

The simplest method, and guaranteed 100% "effective" at discovering contactable devices, is to simply do a ping sweep of the entire address range. However, this can often take several days.

One of my primary aims is to reduce the time required (number of addresses tested), but still have a very "effective" discovery e.g. only scan 10% of the address space, but still find near 100% of the devices out there.

"Elegance" OTOH has the connotations for me that "Chalmers 21th Century Dictionary" appears to give for "effective". A method that scanned only 10% of the address space, but was 100% "effective" is an "elegant" solution (although the actual implementation of the method may not be).

Tim Delaney