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I see 42 used A LOT in the programming world as examples. In screencasts, tutorials, etc.
Where did the popularity of this number come from?
It is from the book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Wikipedia has more detail:
In [The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy], a group of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings demand to learn the Ultimate Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything from the supercomputer, Deep Thought, specially built for this purpose. It takes Deep Thought 7½ million years to compute and check the answer, which turns out to be 42. The Ultimate Question itself is unknown.
You forgot to read The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy
It's a reference to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
It's the answer.
Douglas Adams came up with it and as mentioned it's a reference to THGTTG. Back in the day, programmers were more "geeky" than they are now. Generally they were math geeks. Being extremely geeky would put you in line with Douglas Adams' books. If you look for it, you'll find it everywhere. Where did I put my towel?
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I'm looking for an explanation of the Kameda-Weiner algorithm.
I found the paper "On the State Minimization of Nondeterministic Finite Automata" which, I assume, contains this, though it's unfortunately behind a paywall, and I'm just a hobbyist.
Can someone explain the algorithm, or point me to another source?
Although I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, I think these two pdf files contain some sort of explanation.
Link1
Link2
I just tried to answer it, because I know how frustrating it can be, when you something you really want is behind a paywall! Hope it helps.
Cheers!
It's implemented here: https://github.com/coder0xff/parlex_legacy/blob/132e4a23a599140d22b18ead832626f0c607340f/Automata/NFA.cs#L641
(updated to fix dead link)
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I'm a second year student with my discrete mathematics 2 assignment is to make an automated theorem prover. I have to make a simple prover program that works on Propositional Logic in 4 weeks (assuming that the proof always exist). I've googled so far but the materials there is really hard to understand in 4 weeks. Can anyone recommend me some book/site/open source code that is for beginners or some useful hints to start with? Thank you in advance.
Note: I flagged this to be moved to the Computer Science site because they are much more on top of ATP over there.
It would be nice if you could include what you have looked at and why it does not help you. Then we can figure out what might be better for you. Also, if you have to write a program, then knowing what languages you know will help. Most of what I do with this is done in a functional language such as OCaml or F#, or a logic language such as Prolog or Mercury.
Have you seen "Handbook of Practical Logic and Automated Reasoning" (WorldCat) by John Harrison. I included the (WorldCat) link so you can find the book in a local library as opposed to waiting to buy it which will eat up most of your time.
If you look you will find the OCaml code at the bottom of the page, and F# here and Haskell here.
In case you haven't see the ATP or Proof Assistant at Wikipedia, you might get a lead to some code and papers.
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I have applied to couple of startups and most of them are asking to solve programming challenge before they start on the interviewing candidate.
I have submitted couple of the solution and all the time getting rejected in the initial screening.
Now what i think is, they will see my coding style, algorithm and OOD concepts that i have used to solve the problem. Can you guys input more on it as what other details are taken into consideration and how can i improve my coding for getting selected.
By the way, i did all my coding in either Java/Perl.
Nice question, I am a new grad too... One thing I notice: When you do the exercise home, they expect you to use the best algorithm out there. In my opinion code modularity, even on a small function is key. Put lot effort into the code because they are not just judging you, but comparing you against other candidate. The one which seems to have put the more effort wins.
ps: Ask this question on programmers.stackexchange, you will obtain some good inputs there.
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If you run SBCL (at least on Windows, I use CLISP at home), you get the message, "Your Kitten of Death awaits." I suspect that this has something to do with some form of inside joke (like Super Cow Powers). I've tried Googling and I have found nothing particularly useful (I suppose that it is mentioned elsewhere on the 'net is of some, if not much, use).
If this seems more of a SuperUser or ServerFault question, please let me know and I will ask on their forums instead.
UPDATE:
It seems that the origin of this quote is from a commit by Christopher Rhodes to version 1.54 of the original source (thanks to Daniel A. White for finding the fild name). I'm not sure if that will prove useful, but it is an additional avenue to approach this query.
Here is an interesting discussion on this very topic:
http://www.bitchx.com/log/lisp-f/lisp-f-02-Feb-2010/lisp-f-02-Feb-2010-00.php
They seem to suggest it comes from one of the following:
The nursing home cat that could detect when someone was going to die (Recent book written about the "Grim Reapurr")
The long comic series by Sluggy Freelance about satanic kittens (starts here, ends here)
Or is inspired by Death's kitten(s) in the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett (Image here)
Here is a diff that has it, but its been removed in this patch.
http://www.peerweb.nl/sbcl/sbcl-1.0.14.10-windows.patch
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I've read a long time ago an article about why managers should appreciate the devs., and there was analogy drawn to the 7 samurais movie: that a company can't really offer much to an engineer, and that the engineer chooses to help the company -- like the samurais helped the villagers.
I thought that was on joelonsoftware.com, or codinghorror.com; but the search did not bring any result. Does it ring a bell to anyone? Anyone?
It's from Joel's book "Smart and Gets Things Done". Section is entitled "Treat Them Like Samurai".
A quote:
The village is your team. The samurai are the programmers who, you hope, will come solve your problems, bringing their talent and expertise in exchange for, maybe, a bowl of rice. You may be poor and hopeless, but you sure as heck know how to show some respect for the samurai who is going to save your behind.
Nothing about Samurai, but another 3 articles from Joel that relate to management/developer relations.
Field Guide to Developers
Development Abstraction Layer
Two Stories