[EM] Symmetrical ICT program, with errors fixed

[Michael Ossipoff]

On Sat, Aug 25, 2012 at 5:09 PM, Jameson Quinn <jameson.quinn at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> 2012/8/25 Michael Ossipoff <email9648742 at gmail.com>
>>
>> ...
>>
>> Are you desperately reaching, in an effort to save unimproved
>> Condorcet from a comparison to ICT and Symmetrical ICT?
>
>
> I think you're being hypersensitive here.

Not hypersensitive--just intentionally (but good-naturedly)
aggressive. Trying to provoke some comparison between ICT, Symmetrical
ICT, and unimproved Condorcet.

> The idea is simply to have yet one
> more check that your pseudocode is valid.

I agree that certainly the most convincing test for code being
error-free would be to actually run it. I would, if I knew how to run
the programming language that my computers have.

But, as I said, I've thoroughly checked the program for errors, and I
assure you that I'm confident that I've found and fixed all the
errors.

I didn't know that those programming languages could be run online at
a website, without installing them. Of course I agree that the best
way to make a program available is to write it in a popular
programming language. Of course, on the other hand, converting a
program from pseudocode to a programming language is a very minor
task, very little work. To a person who is familiar with the language
that they're writing it in, that task amounts to nothing more than
copying.

> Then testing as suggested would be easy.
>
> I think that python code, in particular, is even clearer for a
> non-programmer to read than your pseudocode.

Maybe, but  I don't remember if Python allows "endif", "endwhile",
etc., even though it doesn't require them. I feel that, for clarity,
those statements should be included. For clarity, I like the BASIC
style FOR/NEXT loops, with  "next i" at the bottom.

And it seems to me that (in the Python version that I read about, some
time ago) Python's multi-dimensional arrays were a bit awkward, in
comparison to other languages. ...Especially since the Python book
that I had didn't specify them well. Computer language books often
don't specify a language well, especially if the author is trying to
be funny or clever. I've long felt that computer language books should
be written only by the person who devised the language, or by a
mathematician.

>>
>> Computer-counted test scenarios can only confirm the
>> already-determined facts that I've stated.
>
>
> Yes. That's exactly what they're good for. It may have no value for you,
> because you've checked the algorithm carefully by hand, but for us a
> computerized test would save us that work.

True. I can't expect others to take my word for it that there are no
errors in the code. Actually running the program would be more
convincing.

But of course the criterion compliances of Symmetrical ICT are things
that can be demonstrated without using a computer program.

Well, I might soon be saying that I've run the program in VBA, the
most widely-distributed programming language. (It's on every computer
that has Microsoft Office).

Mike Ossipoff