Douglas Sinclair writes:
By the same token, I might say that to communicate in a scholarly manner one must know how to spell and punctuate with marks other than ellipses. However, I will not. As has been pointed out, each of us learned the
I don't understand your use of the term "ellipse" here. You mean like a circle? Like a big O? O, I see. (Just kidding. Spelling flames are especially pointless on a list like this.)
Certainly "big O notation" and the modulo operator are studied in undergrad computer science and mathematics. However, many of us have never studied these things. There are a number of high-school students on the list. There are people who have never had the oportunity to study technical subjects. IMHO, these people are all welcome on cypherpunks and have much to contribute. When I first joined the list, I was a self taught programmer and had never been taught the formalisms of "big O notation". We must not become a self-congratulatory elite.
None of us knows everything. The things I know little or nothing about, I stay out of. I think this is reasonable. The list has 500 or so people on it, and there's no point in 500 people watchin someone presume to speak on computational complexity without even knowing the basic terms, such as Big O notation (for which I would recommend _any_ computer science textbook, perhaps Aho, Hopcroft, and Ullman, or even a more basic text...the new Leiserson, Rivest, etc. text covers a lot of such things). On things I know little or nothing about, I just don't post. You won't see me rambling on about swIPe, encrypted IP tunnels, algebraic number theory, etc. (Some of these things I know just enough about to know they are important, but I leave the inner workings for others.) The recent unpleasantness is just a continuing pattern of someone getting a bug in his bonnet and not letting a topic drop. Let's just let it drop. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."