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=-1.8 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,PLING_QUERY autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,b6d862eabdeb1fc4 X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news2.google.com!news.glorb.com!feeder.erje.net!news.mixmin.net!aioe.org!not-for-mail From: tmoran@acm.org Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada noob here! Is Ada widely used? Date: Sat, 5 Jun 2010 20:41:47 +0000 (UTC) Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server Message-ID: References: <7ukoz32sn15r$.2j0eybb3m2s1.dlg@40tude.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: J4HSNf9Eqj44wTz1J3b8lQ.user.speranza.aioe.org X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.2 X-Newsreader: Tom's custom newsreader Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:11324 Date: 2010-06-05T20:41:47+00:00 List-Id: > > The word "model" is key. It is meaningless to talk about whether > > something, software or hardware, *is* stochastic - but one can observe > > whether a stochastic *model* of the system is helpful or not. > > Hmm, I think a physicist would strongly disagree with that. AFAIK, there is > no working deterministic models of quantum processes. A fair number of physicists have tried to find a hidden-variable deterministic version of quantum mechanics. In the meantime, engineers quite successfully used the probabilistic model to build working devices. > 1. Confidence has nothing to do with probability. It is an absolutely > different model of uncertainly. That returns us to the square one. > Confidences and probabilities are incomparable. > > 2. Your confidence describes you, it does not the program. It fact, it is > like - I give my word, it works. Fine, but why anybody should trust my > word? We fundamentally differ. I use statistical decision theory, which takes costs of outcomes and *estimated probabilities* of outcomes, to make decisions. All I have is my best estimates, ie, confidence levels. I don't know the "absolute probability" of an event, and if you define that by frequency of occurrence, you really need to wait till the end of the universe to finally nail that down.