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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: fac41,9a0ff0bffdf63657 X-Google-Attributes: gidfac41,public X-Google-Thread: f43e6,9a0ff0bffdf63657 X-Google-Attributes: gidf43e6,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,4b06f8f15f01a568 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,9a0ff0bffdf63657 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public From: Matthew Heaney Subject: Re: Software landmines (loops) Date: 1998/09/03 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 387401176 Sender: matt@mheaney.ni.net References: <902934874.2099.0.nnrp-10.c246a717@news.demon.co.uk> <6r1glm$bvh$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <6r9f8h$jtm$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <6renh8$ga7$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <6rf59b$2ud$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <6rfra4$rul$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <35DBDD24.D003404D@calfp.co.uk> <6sbuod$fra$1@hirame.wwa.com> <35f51e53.48044143@ <904556531.666222@miso.it.uq.edu.au> <35EAEC47.164424A7@s054.aone.net.au> <35EBBFAF.DE38C061@s054.aone.net.au> <35EC28BD.351F33DF@s054.aone.net.au> <35EDC648.76F03F32@draper.com> NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 02 Sep 1998 23:49:42 PDT Newsgroups: comp.lang.eiffel,comp.object,comp.software-eng,comp.lang.ada Date: 1998-09-03T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Tim McDermott writes: > Matthew Heaney wrote:snip > > > The latter point is only a nit. It's the first point that puts a bee in > > my bonnet. It may not seem like much in this example, because we're > > "only" going from 2 rules to 4. But things get scary really fast when > > going 4 to 8. > > This seems a little extreme to me. While I have great respect for > combinatorial explosion, you are talking about a 3-term boolean expression. > There are only 6 ways to put one of those together, and I have no trouble > evaluating any of the forms. I know because I just listed them all, and ran > through their evaluation with no problem. I don't think I made my point clear. There are 2**N possibilities to consider when evaluating a predicate. That means a 3-term expression has 8 possibilities, not 6: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 P T T T T F F F F Q T T F F T T F F R T F T F T F T F