python implementation of a new integer encoding algorithm.

[janhein.vanderburg at gmail.com]

Op woensdag 18 februari 2015 11:33:18 UTC+1 schreef Laura Creighton:
> Hi Jan.
Hi Laura, thanks for your comments; let me explain my why:


> Should you ever need an assembler programmer for
> quick and dirty hacks for the PDP-11 line (11/20 and 11/05 preferred
> as it is harder) I am still the woman for the job.  Indeed, I spent
> most of my 20s finding better and better ways to fit programs into
> smaller and smaller memory footprints.
I once wrote a bootstrap loader for a PDP-11, but I forget when and what model exactly, for it was some decades ago and not all that spectacular.

> I perfectly understand the intellectual thrill of doing such things.
> As puzzles go, it is about as cool a one as exists, and its all for
> things that matter -- for real.
> 
> However, in the matter of financial compensation and world recognition,
> you have just laid a very large goose-egg.
I don't want financial compensation and don't need world recognition, so I will accept the egg.

> so all the techniques we learned for making our code concise -- let alone
> the dirty tricks I specialised in -- were no longer relevant.
If dirty tricks means shortcuts I personally wouldn't have excepted them even at that time of resource shortages.
I hate shortcuts.

> >From the mid 1980s onward I have been telling people 'your code is
> ugly, please tighten it up by refactoring it <here> and <here>' and
> when I am their instructor they grumble and do it, and otherwise they
> flip me the bird.  In their eyes, it doesn't matter how the code
> _looks_ as long as it does the job.
Do not get intimidated and simply refuse to follow the lemmings.

> what I am going for is not a 'death - by looking unfashionable' but
> rather a demand that good code is clear to understand.
Sorry that my code is all that confusing.
I have had several comparable complaints from other contributors to this discussion.
I will try to improve that part of my proposal, but don't hold your breath, for it may take some time.
In fact I was initially asking for help with that code, but I ended up defending my credentials.

> Your proposed encoding scheme (if it does as you say, I have not
> analysed it) scores very, very high in the _cleverness_ department.
> Enough that a lot of people, who aren't as clever as you do, have
> no hope in hell of ever being clever enough to debug something that
> uses it.  Therefore, you will never see widespread adoption of your
> scheme, no matter how brilliantly it does as you say, because we all
> need things that are easier to debug more than we need better compression.
I don't need widespread adaption outside my own applications, and I don't see any problem for a python programmer that uses an object that flawlessly encodes and decodes an arbitrary integer value.
To me debugging is not synonymous to making things human readable or even translatable.

So what's in it for other programmers then me myself and I?: the no brainer optimizing of resource requirements.

Compression is different from optimal individual integer encoding, since the first needs a context of surrounding  integers in a sequence of integer images.

> So now you are sad.
Not yet.

> So then, now what?
> 
> If you are still fired up with the desire to compress things, then
> there is a huge, _very well paying_ market I want to introduce you
> to.  And this is _tech support for porn sites_.  Porn sites make a
> ton of money, indeed the numbers are scary.  And here the idea of
> 'I saved 2% of time/bandwidth/disk space/' really matters.  You
> can really save money for them, and it really matters to them.
> Since I have never found sex 'dirty' and indeed consider it one
> of the great joys in life, I have never found anything wrong with
> working for porn sites.
Frankly a have a first application in mind that is less sexy and won't be all that profitable.
There is nothing wrong with porn indeed, but at our age it is just no longer on the top of one's mind every second is it?

> And, hell, out of male porn Jimmy Wales made wikipedia.  Haven't
> we all benefitted?
I really don't know what you are talking about here, and only interested in a reply if it seriously contributes to my  personal objective to get "my" way of integer encoding implemented as proposed.

> But, right now, you are, alas for you, about 45 years too late for the
> ideas you are sprouting.  I had similar ones about 30 years too late
> and, well, they only worked for me for about 3-5 years.  Sucks to be
> you, friend -- you needed to be your grandfather, I fear.

Thanks for making me feel so mature.
Let's go back to the future.