From: tmoran@acm.org
Subject: Re: Generation of permutations
Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 19:04:28 GMT
Date: 2002-05-09T19:04:28+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <0LzC8.634$pr6.73577781@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: abbbl6$883$1@nh.pace.co.uk
> > calculate how long T some standard sort algorithm would take, maximum,
> > then abort if your randomly generated program is still running at T+1 sec.
>
> But that's just looking for the occurrence of a specific algorithm, isn't
> it? Say I calculate the time needed for the Slow Sort algorithm
> (permutations) to get through some data and use this as the worst case. I'd
> reject every valid random algorithm that was T>Slow Sort. I'm sure I can
> come up with valid code that sorts at a time greater than that of the Slow
You could of course change the time requirement from T+1 second to T+one
year, and that would probably uncover most sorts of interest. But you
could never be sure that way that if you had just let it run a little bit
longer it wouldn't have come up with a different, better algorithm.
It's interesting that random generation isn't needed here, sequential
Big_Number's would work just fine. Randomness buys you that the
probability you have tried a point in search space arbitrarily close to
any given point, gets larger, while with sequential test points it's
guaranteed to take a very long time before you get anywhere near
Big_Number'last. But here closeness doesn't count. You could be one bit
away from a wonderful sort algorithm and, since it doesn't work, that's no
better than having many bits wrong. But if, instead of a totally random
new program each time, you try tweaks to the best you've seen so far, then
being close does count, and randomness does help.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2002-05-09 19:04 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 88+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2002-04-29 11:54 Generation of permutations Reinert Korsnes
2002-04-30 13:52 ` Ted Dennison
2002-04-30 14:20 ` Marin David Condic
2002-05-02 12:32 ` Robert Dewar
2002-05-02 15:47 ` Ted Dennison
2002-05-02 16:16 ` Mark Biggar
2002-05-03 13:04 ` Marin David Condic
2002-05-05 0:52 ` Robert Dewar
2002-05-05 23:11 ` tmoran
2002-05-06 2:13 ` Chad R. Meiners
2002-05-06 13:52 ` Stephen Leake
2002-05-09 17:44 ` Darren New
2002-05-09 18:07 ` Stephen Leake
2002-05-09 20:58 ` Darren New
2002-05-09 23:21 ` tmoran
2002-05-09 23:51 ` Darren New
2002-05-10 3:37 ` tmoran
2002-05-10 3:59 ` Darren New
2002-05-10 13:13 ` Robert Dewar
2002-05-25 16:21 ` Robert I. Eachus
2002-05-09 23:24 ` Robert Dewar
2002-05-09 23:48 ` Robert Dewar
2002-05-10 3:37 ` tmoran
2002-05-10 15:10 ` Chad R. Meiners
2002-05-11 4:04 ` Robert Dewar
2002-05-16 1:35 ` Chad R. Meiners
2002-05-11 4:05 ` Robert Dewar
2002-05-06 15:46 ` Wes Groleau
2002-05-06 16:21 ` Chad R. Meiners
2002-05-06 16:33 ` Darren New
2002-05-07 0:06 ` tmoran
2002-05-07 0:26 ` Darren New
2002-05-07 1:56 ` tmoran
2002-05-07 10:39 ` Robert Dewar
2002-05-07 17:25 ` Chad R. Meiners
2002-05-08 2:27 ` Robert Dewar
2002-05-08 8:44 ` Mats Karlssohn
2002-05-07 17:00 ` Wes Groleau
2002-05-06 21:33 ` Robert Dewar
2002-05-06 17:26 ` Marin David Condic
2002-05-07 7:35 ` tmoran
2002-05-07 13:22 ` Marin David Condic
2002-05-08 5:23 ` tmoran
2002-05-08 14:10 ` Marin David Condic
2002-05-09 16:20 ` Darren New
2002-05-09 19:04 ` tmoran [this message]
2002-05-08 16:20 ` Darren New
2002-05-08 17:31 ` tmoran
2002-05-08 17:39 ` Chad R. Meiners
2002-05-07 15:34 ` Darren New
2002-05-07 17:44 ` Chad R. Meiners
2002-05-07 19:58 ` tmoran
2002-05-07 21:05 ` Turing-undecidable languages (OT) Chad R. Meiners
2002-05-08 8:24 ` Danx
2002-05-08 17:16 ` Chad R. Meiners
2002-05-10 2:37 ` Robert Dewar
2002-05-08 9:16 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2002-05-08 17:18 ` Chad R. Meiners
2002-05-09 20:56 ` Dmitry A.Kazakov
2002-05-09 16:18 ` Chad R. Meiners
2002-05-10 2:52 ` Robert Dewar
2002-05-08 2:17 ` Generation of permutations Robert Dewar
2002-05-03 13:13 ` Ted Dennison
2002-05-03 13:24 ` Lutz Donnerhacke
2002-04-30 15:06 ` Hyman Rosen
2002-05-01 8:40 ` Adrian Hoe
2002-05-01 19:53 ` Hyman Rosen
2002-05-11 1:52 ` Steven Deller
2002-05-02 16:24 ` Mark Biggar
2002-04-30 17:12 ` Wes Groleau
2002-04-30 22:57 ` Robert Dewar
2002-05-01 0:54 ` tmoran
2002-05-01 9:42 ` Florian Weimer
2002-05-02 12:34 ` Robert Dewar
2002-05-01 12:43 ` Robert Dewar
2002-05-01 15:05 ` TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN Wes Groleau
2002-05-02 12:27 ` More on copyright, (Re: TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN) Robert Dewar
2002-05-08 13:56 ` Wes Groleau
2002-05-08 18:01 ` Robert Dewar
2002-05-08 18:31 ` Hyman Rosen
2002-05-09 13:41 ` Wes Groleau
2002-05-01 12:46 ` Generation of permutations Robert Dewar
2002-05-01 18:22 ` OT:Copyright, was " tmoran
2002-05-01 21:56 ` Robert Dewar
2002-05-01 23:45 ` tmoran
2002-05-02 11:58 ` Robert Dewar
2002-05-01 14:55 ` Wes Groleau
2002-05-02 12:41 ` Robert Dewar
replies disabled
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox