Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att-cb!att-ih!ihnp4!oddjob!matt
From: matt@oddjob.UChicago.EDU (My Name Here)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Poor Algorithms
Message-ID: <14476@oddjob.UChicago.EDU>
Date: 8 Mar 88 19:05:03 GMT
References: <3821@ihlpf.ATT.COM> <2791@enea.se> <404@tub.UUCP>
Organization: Network 23
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Oliver Laumann quotes Butler W. Lampson:

) In a paragraph titled "Get it right" he mentions that neither
) abstraction nor simplicity can be a substitute for getting an algorithm
) or a computer system right; . . .

And getting an algorithm right is no substitute for understanding the
problem.  A friend of mine had worked for a certain electronic
instrument company doing numerical analysis for some engineers.  One
engineer gave him a 200x200 matrix to invert.  (This was in the early
70s when that was a big matrix.)  My friend did the job and noticed
that the inverse looked a little familiar.  He asked the engineer,
"Could this matrix represent a rotation of some sort?"  Answer: "Why,
yes, you could consider it as one."  (The inverse was the transpose.)

				Matt Crawford