[EM] Re: Floyd algorithm?

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

Markus said:

Mike,

you wrote (17 Dec 2003):

>Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

You do. You call that the Floyd algorithm
(http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):

I reply:

Wrong again. You aren't being entirely clear with us about exactly what you 
mean by"that". Perhaps you're confused about what you mean.

You posted a little fragment of a Python program. And, in that fragment, 
some of the lines weren't even complete. You said I called that the Floyd 
algorithm. I replied that I have never called that line-truncated fragment 
anything. Did i call the Python program from which you got that fragment the 
Floyd algorithm? That's another matter. I didnt call your poorly-copied 
fragment anything, including the Floyd algorithm.

You continued:

But the then used algorithm is clearly not the Floyd algorithm
(http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):

I reply:

I couldn't care less if it's the Floyd algorithm. If it isn't, then I'll 
tell Russ to delete that name from the website. When we put it at the 
website, I at that time believed that it was the Floyd algorithm because it 
was the corrected versioin of something that you had posted to EM, calling 
it the Floyd algorithm.

What you'd posted differed by only making one pass throiugh the 3-candiate 
permutations. But one pass isn't guaranteed to find all the strongest 
beatpaths.

Now it occurs to me that maybe your Floyd algorithm isn't intended to do 
that. After all, you do call it the shortest-path algorithm, not the 
strongest path algorithm. I assumed at the time that your algorithm was 
supposed to find the strongest beatpaths, and that yoiu'd accidentally left 
out the code to repeat the passes till the task is complete. So I corrected 
what you'd posted so that it would do that, and called it the Floyd 
algorithm.

I re-emphasize that I didn't get our strongest beatpaths algorithm from you 
or Floyd, or anyone but Steve Eppley, who suggested it.

But now I don't know if an algorithm for finding the strongest beatpaths is 
the same as the Floyd algorithm. You say it isn't. Fine. I'll tell Russ to 
delete that name from the website.

Now, Markus, understand this: I did call the algorithm from which you got 
your fragment the Floyd algorithm, because I thought that algorithm was what 
you were trying to write when you posted a "Floyd algorithm". I did not call 
your posted line-truncated fragment the Floyd algorithm, and that was what I 
was saying in my previoius posting here tonight.

I don't know if our strongest beatpaths algorithm is the Floyd algorithm, 
and I don't care. It finds strongest beatpaths. I'll tell Rus to delete the 
name.

Mike Ossipoff

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