the initial assertion was:
> On Friday, May 31, 2002, at 06:51 , David Kirol wrote:
> Is this one of those cases where One may be trying to 'pull a fast
> one' by
> relying on that science fiction myth that 'Computers don't make mistakes'
> ? I
> don't mean to berate anyone, (in fact I suspect this may be a fairly
> common
> defect when people try to use a computer to solve certain problems -
> things
> like common sense, not to mention free will, are defered in favor of a
> 'computer solution')but I do want to point out this may be a 'winning
> strategy' only if both players agree to use the same winning strategy.
[..]
Allow me to rephrase that in a drieuxish tale -
"once upon a time a nanny I knew rang me up, and was having
problems with the personal computer she had access to, because
well, it was merely acting up. So I explained to her that she
had the proper training for dealing with computers - namely treat
it exactly as one would a 2 year old - you do not offer complex
issues to them, and provide them with EXPLICIT ORDERS. She rang
me back in a few hours and agreed."
The principle problem here is that the same, unfortunately does not
work on software developers - quite as elegantly - most of whom are
able to be effective as 3 and 4 year olds - so it takes a bit more
with the crayons and modling clay to keep them amused and on track.
{ and you have to deal with their pulling hair and other manifestations
of 'does not play well with others' sorts of issues.... }
let us note the specific defect that David has unpleasantly pointed
out in the way I had coded up the inner loop...
On Friday, May 31, 2002, at 07:47 , David Kirol wrote:
[..]
> I produced this result by modifying Dreiux's code:
[..]
> if ($total == 13) { # because the system is deterministic, this is
> guaranteed to be B's turn
> $take = 4;
> } elsif ( $total > $decrCount ) { # come this way first - since we
> have to
> play here more often
> $take = $ModuleHash{($total % $modValue)};
> } elsif ( exists( $decrHash{$total})) { # we are in range
> $take = $decrHash{$total};
> } else {
> die "Way Weird - $total is not in play for some reason\n";
> }
[..]
notice that to get his 'non-linear' value tested prior to dealing
with the Modulo Hash of trash - he needed to expressly write in
one more discrete exception case....
But what if we opted to abandon the whole 'linear ordering' of
the %decrHash - so as to allow the leap of faith from entry at 6
to having an entry at 13 - and gave up the pretty branch tree
efficiency of doing the fast slide into the Modulo Hash with
say something like:
if ( exists( $decrHash{$total})) {
$take = $decrHash{$total};
}elsif ( exists($ModuleHash{($total % $modValue)})) {
$take = $ModuleHash{($total % $modValue)};
} else {
die "Way Weird - $total is not in play for some reason\n";
}
cf:
http://www.wetware.com/drieux/pbl/Auslanders/alt300-b.txt
Notice that this type of construction also detaches us from
the specific need at the ModuloHash as well - to some extent.
We are now rapidly racing towards the use of the
my %decrHash = (
1 => 1,
2 => 1,
3 => 3,
4 => 4,
5 => 3,
6 => 1,
13 => 4,
);
as a non-linear hash of values - that we could take in from
a configuration file, or set of configuration files... At which
point we rather do need to resolve how we really were planning
to build the test-bed for 'autoMajikally' solving this problem...
Either that or we are about to wake up - smell the coffee, go
back and re-read "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Hofstadter - look at
the problem of the limitations of formalization of any system
of axioms based upon principles of arithmetics - take into account
the complete failure of Von Nuemann to solve the problem, or provide
a decent counter to Godel's Incompleteness Theorum - at which point
we rather do find ourselves rapidly running into the whole 'game
theory' problem and the complete assininity of Shelling's "The
Strategy of Conflict" - which was the 'kult classic' for the
'best and brightest' that brought us not only The tragedy of the
Gulf of Tonkien Resolution but that all time Cult Classic Rant:
"I don't care what your computer says,
we are taking fire from your pacified ville!"
- person who did not understand that computers
are the wave of the future while pinned down
under enemy fire.
but of course everyone knows that, which is why we all code in
perl because we accept the fact that we are going to have to be
hacking out extensions to the system, since we will keep running
into these trade off points and will of course have to keep on
shipping out patches to the formalization of the system....
Or am I just being slow here???
ciao
drieux
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