Re: Great SWT Program

On Jan 10, 4:16 am, blm...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <blm...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"io"?

Error: Sentence fragment of unclear meaning.

Clearer -- or so I claim -- if considered as a response to
something you said in the post to which I was replying.

Not only doesn't the name of one of Jupiter's moons make any sense as
a sentence all its own, but what you just wrote also doesn't make much
sense, though at least this time it actually appears to be a complete
sentence.

[insulting suggestion deleted]

No. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me
are at all true.

No idea what you're trying to say here. My claim is [something
irrelevant to the main point, which was that 2N > N when N > 0,
a mathematically irrefutable fact].

A mathematically irrefutable fact that's not particularly relevant
to whether it's faster to type 2N characters than N characters

On the contrary; assuming a typing speed of x characters per second,
it will take 2Nx seconds versus Nx seconds. 2Nx > Nx if N > 0 and
x > 0. So I'm right, aside from the rather obscure corner cases of a)
typing a negative number of characters and b) typing so fast that you
actually finish each keystroke earlier than you started it. ;)

The gap will be narrower for faster typists. I never denied this.

Typing speed may also vary. I never denied this either; obviously one
simply takes x to be the average typing speed and my conclusion
remains true as a statistical rule. A particular instance of typing 2N
characters faster than another instance of typing N characters may
well occur, but over a large enough amount of typing it will still
average out to 2N characters taking twice as long to type. There'll be
specific instances of typing 2N characters quite fast, or N quite
slow. And specific instances of taking even longer to type 2N or
quicker to type N than typical, resulting in sometimes taking *four*
times as long to type a particular 2N characters than some other N
characters on some other occasion. None of these details matter; it
averages out, and whatever the typing speed averages out to, that
factor of two remains and 2N characters will take a given typist twice
as long as N characters will, on average over a large enough sample,
for a particular typist whose speed has plateaued.

Time to hit a key may vary based on what key preceded it,
but given a
constant pattern of input (e.g. English prose, or Java code, or
whatever) and enough time it should average out to a fixed value. If
that value is x > 0, and N > 0, then 2Nx > Nx and fewer keystrokes is
(on average) better.

It would seem so, but [snip irrelevancies]

It does not matter. See above. It will average out. 2N will take twice
as long as N on average. Fewer characters is on average better. That a
specific occasion of typing might be a statistical outlier is
irrelevant when dealing with averages.

Now this dispute is over. Average typing speed, over all its
variabilities and random hiccups, down to a positive number x, and
then observe that 2Nx is still twice Nx. End of story.
.

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