From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,c42dbf68f5320193 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-05-09 09:20:29 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed1.cidera.com!Cidera!cyclone.socal.rr.com!cyclone3.kc.rr.com!news3.kc.rr.com!twister.socal.rr.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3CDAA1E1.C7390A73@san.rr.com> From: Darren New X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Generation of permutations References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 16:20:28 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 66.75.151.160 X-Complaints-To: abuse@rr.com X-Trace: twister.socal.rr.com 1020961228 66.75.151.160 (Thu, 09 May 2002 09:20:28 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 09:20:28 PDT Organization: RoadRunner - West Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:23777 Date: 2002-05-09T16:20:28+00:00 List-Id: Marin David Condic wrote: > I *think* I follow - but that seems to disallow any sort of looping. (Or do > I misunderstand?) You misunderstand. > Isn't it possible for a program to be in a state it has > been in before (iterating through the data on disk again...) and not be > caught in an infininte loop? No. Perhaps the program counter will have a value it had before, but if every variable in the program, all the values in the registers, the data on the disk, etc, are the same, it's going to do the same thing it did last time (assuming it's deterministic, of course). > Or because you're including a check of the > state of the data as well, then it can't be in the same state plus the > identical state of the data without being caught in a loop? (So if you had > 1k of program+data+processor_state, you'd save every bit, execute one clock > cycle, compare the 1k against every previous 1k and if it matches, its stuck > and throw it out? Sounds deliciously slow! :-) Exactly. > But that's just looking for the occurrence of a specific algorithm, isn't > it? Right. Rather than a "general sort algorithm". Actually, it's interesting, because a "sorting algorithm" doesn't sort items. It orders them. When I sort my socks, I don't put them in a row, darkest to lightest. I group them by the sort of socks they are. :-) I think the unusual meaning of the word came about because a card sorter (which really did just sort the cards without ordering them) was used to order the cards, basically via repeated sorting a la radix sort. Just an interesting aside... -- Darren New San Diego, CA, USA (PST). Cryptokeys on demand. The 90/10 rule of toothpaste: the last 10% of the tube lasts as long as the first 90%.