Terry Reedy, 03.05.2011 08:00:
On 5/3/2011 1:04 AM, Stefan Behnel wrote:
The bad thing about this recipe is that it requires quite a bit of
background knowledge in order to infer that the code the developer is
looking at is actually correct.
The main math knowledge needed is the trivial fact that if a*x + b = 0,
then x = -b/a. The other math knowledge needed is that complex numbers add
componentwise. The trick is that replacing x with j and evaluating
therefore causes (in Python) all the coefficients of x (now j) to be added
together separately from all the constant terms to reduce the linear
equation to a*x+b (= 0 implied).
As your above paragraph proves, it's the kind of implementation that
requires three lines of executing code and at least 6 lines of additional
comment. Hopefully accompanied by an excuse of the developer.
Stefan
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