[EM] Symmetrical ICT program, with errors fixed

[Jameson Quinn]

2012/8/25 Michael Ossipoff <email9648742 at gmail.com>

> 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.


You can always include them as comments.


> 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.


Not if you set them up using list comprehensions (which may not have been
in the book you read, if it was old).


> ...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).
>

But javascript (and thus the ability to run coffeescript, which is
essentially just a dialect of javascript without so many nasty gotchas) is
in every computer, tablet, and phone with a modern browser...

Jameson
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