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On Tue, 18 Feb 2014 04:05:03 +0200 |
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Gevisz <gevisz@×××××.com> wrote: |
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> How can you be sure if something is "large enough" if, as you say |
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> below, you do not care about probabilities? |
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|
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Statistics. |
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> If you do not care (= do not now anything) about probabilities |
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> (and mathematics, in general), you just unable to understand |
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> that debugging a program with 200K lines of code take |
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> |
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> 200000!/(10000!)^20 |
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> |
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> more time than debugging of 20 different programs with 10K lines of |
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> code. You can try to calculate that number yourself but I quite sure |
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> that if the latter can take, say, 20 days, the former can take |
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> millions of years. |
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|
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Assuming PID 1 is 200K lines; however, it's a lot smaller than that. |
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> It is all the probability! Or, to be more precise, combinatorics. |
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That's too precise; both of these are just a part of something bigger, |
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that big thing is called statistics, in theory you can hold yourself on |
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to probabilities, but in practice statistics will give you guarantees. |
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|
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> Have you ever tried forex? If yes, you should have been warned |
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> that "no past performance guarantee the future one." |
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> |
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> And if you do not believe that (and do not care about probability |
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> and all the stuff like that), you should visit any of the forex forums |
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> where you will be suggested a magical money winning strategy that, in |
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> the past, behaved very well and earned 200 or even 500% a month. |
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Same could be said about the opposite; seeing it in one way you would |
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want to ditch statistics with this statement, seeing it the other way |
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you would want to accept statistics with the opposite statement. It |
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effectively makes the statement lose its meaning in this context; as |
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said, statistics and the acceptance thereof is far more practical. |
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If you consider a segfault in PID1 or the kernel to be the end of the |
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world like losing tons of money, unless you run a critical appliance, |
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then you could reconsider the stability of the rest of your system. |
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Because in the end, you've put all your money in PID1 / kernel; whereas |
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the full picture includes a lot more than that (eg. core libraries), |
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so, a good winning strategy is to spare money for the rest out there. |
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(Where "winning" means preventing your world from falling apart) |
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-- |
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With kind regards, |
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|
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Tom Wijsman (TomWij) |
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Gentoo Developer |
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|
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E-mail address : TomWij@g.o |
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GPG Public Key : 6D34E57D |
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GPG Fingerprint : C165 AF18 AB4C 400B C3D2 ABF0 95B2 1FCD 6D34 E57D |