On Sat, Oct 21, 2017 at 3:58 PM, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Sat, Oct 21, 2017 at 12:33 AM, Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > >> > >> The problem is that, like most real problems, improving computer code has >> no simple one-dimensional measure of "better". Go games are won or lost. > > > A computer program that does the same thing as another but is smaller and > executes faster is objectively better > ; and although there is no guarantee small fast programs usually have fewer > bugs than large slow programs, and the bugs they do have are easier to find > and fix.
This is not necessarily the case. In engineering practice it is common to use the expression "premature optimization". The idea is: don't try to make programs as fast as you can, because this hurts readability and maintainability. Only optimize for speed when you absolutely must. There are biological equivalents, the idea of "evolution of evolvability". Some species hit local maxima and strongly optimize for a dimension, but this also places them in a dead end. Less optimized solutions might have the property of being more easily evolvable beyond the local maxima. This is why modern scientists use Python instead of C whenever they can. Python is one order of magnitude slower than C. > And if you complain that speed size and robustness are 3 dimensions not one > then try making the most money. That's the great thing about the Free > Market, one dimension rules them all. The above is also a problem with the free market. The free market is incredibly efficient in utilizing resources to spread the maximum amount of gizmos to the maximum amount of people. It is not necessarily optimally efficient in preserving resources for what really matters in the long term, or creating incentives for individual happiness, or anything long-term to be honest. You seem to love astrophysics -- I do too, but you are surely more knowledgeable. Who pays for the astrophysicists and their equipment? Would the free-market ever do that? Maybe once there's a clear path to profit. Elon Musk is banking on that, but would Elon Musk take the leap without the previous efforts by NASA and other such agencies? I think this is equivalent to the local maxima problem that I allude to above. Best, Telmo. > > John K Clark > > > > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
