From: Paul Lutus <nospam@...>
Date: 2006-09-02T10:05:27+09:00
Subject: Re: Happy Numbers (#93)

Hans Fugal wrote:

> This isn't a math quiz. It's a programming quiz.

Yes, true, but to program efficiently, you need to know at least some of the
math. Like my earlier expressed notion that n * n computes faster than n **
2, which appears not to be true in Ruby for God knows what reason.

The example I just gave would seem to argue against understanding the math
behind a stated problem, but I think it's true in general. Like the day,
many years ago, when I wrote a program to find even prime numbers. It ran
for a week and only found one! :)

-- 
Paul Lutus
http://www.arachnoid.com