I hope you came up with an interesting solution for this month’s Exercise, one different from my own. The goal is to output unique values from zero through ten billion, values where no two digits repeat.
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At the basic level, a spell-checker works as a simple comparison program: The word in question is compared with each word in the dictionary. When the source word isn’t found, it’s assumed to be misspelled. With a dictionary file on your computer, it’s easy for a C programmer to code this type of program.
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I’m sure some eccentric term exists to describe a number where no digits repeat. Whether this concept has any mathematical relevance remains uncertain. But it’s the type of problem you can easily solve by writing a computer program.
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It’s time for your computer to babble nonsensically. No alcohol is necessary. All you must do is pluck out a random word from the dictionary. Run the program several times and you have babbly nonsense: subtotal spectacles lute's sushi's. Brilliant! *HIC*
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Beyond knowing how many words are in the computer’s dictionary, another good measure to know is how many characters are in the longest word. Together, these two values give you a profile for the complete word matrix.
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I admit it: I’m a nerd and I read the dictionary. I know it’s a reference, not a work of fiction. The plot is weak. But I found it enjoyable as a kid to discover new words and their meanings. Alas, the Unix dictionary file lists only words and not definitions. But how many words are in there?
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I hope you didn’t “flip out” over this month’s Exercise. Flipping a coin can be done by hand or by using a computer. Using a computer is easier because it can be programmed to record each flip and it saves you hand muscle molecules for flipping and the chore of writing down the results.
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My first Unix System Administrator job was pretty routine: I did backups. It was only later that I discovered some of the many nerdy treasures available in that operating system.
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Probability. Odds. These are words I often confuse, but the similarity relates to how often things happen. The gold standard is the flip of a coin: two possibilities, heads or tails. If you don’t understand how it works, you can write code to drive home the point.
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The make utility has been around since the early days of Unix. This tool is designed to create large projects by compiling and linking files based on dependencies. It takes care of a lot problems managing multi-module files to streamline the build process.
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