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authorNorbert Preining <norbert@preining.info>2019-09-02 13:46:59 +0900
committerNorbert Preining <norbert@preining.info>2019-09-02 13:46:59 +0900
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+[Exercises 4,5,6,7 were originally posted together on 4 Nov 91]
+Date: Mon 4 Nov 91 16:42:44-EST
+From: Michael Downes <MJD@MATH.AMS.COM>
+Subject: Around the bend #2
+To: info-tex@shsu.edu
+
+The statement of purpose in `Around the bend' #1 said something about
+finding the `best solution', but failed to define what `best' should
+mean when comparing pieces of TeX code. I'll start by throwing out
+a few ideas.
+
+Simplicity. A good solution gets hold of the essential idea of the
+problem and attacks it directly, rather than beating around the bush
+and resorting to separate clauses to handle troublesome subcases.
+
+Economy. if two solutions compare equal in other respects, then the
+better solution is the one that uses less of TeX's resources (main
+memory, hash table, string pool, and so forth). Therefore I
+(immodestly) say that my solution to Exercise 1 was ever so slightly
+better than the other two given, because it avoided introducing any
+auxiliary macros that were not included in the original statement of
+the problem.
+
+Robustness. If a solution only works under limited friendly
+circumstances, and otherwise blows up with an error message, that's not
+good. My solution to Exercise 2 was flawed in this respect, since D.A.
+found a test case that caused it to go wrong.
+
+***********************************************************************
+*** Exercise 4 (essay):
+
+What should `best' mean when comparing solutions to an `Around the
+bend' exercise? What qualities of a good solution are most important?
+Why? How can they be objectively measured? (Or can they?) On the
+negative side, what qualities indicate an inferior solution?
+
+***********************************************************************
+
+[Exercise 5 moved to exercise.005]
+[Exercise 6 moved to exercise.006]
+[Exercise 7 moved to exercise.007]
+
+Send answers to:
+
+Michael Downes mjd@math.ams.com (Internet)
+
+A summary will be posted Tuesday, December 4, 1991. However, because of
+the difficulty of E7, I will probably procrastinate on posting the
+solutions for that exercise until the first or second week of December.
+
+Table of special characters, to verify accurate transmission:
+
+ASCII 33: ! exclamation point ASCII 60: < left elbow
+ASCII 34: " double quote ASCII 61: = equals sign
+ASCII 35: # number/pound sign ASCII 62: > right elbow
+ASCII 36: $ dollar sign ASCII 63: ? question mark
+ASCII 37: % percent sign ASCII 64: @ at sign
+ASCII 38: & ampersand ASCII 91: [ left square bracket
+ASCII 39: ' right quote/apostrophe ASCII 92: \ backslash
+ASCII 40: ( left parenthesis ASCII 93: ] right square bracket
+ASCII 41: ) right parenthesis ASCII 94: ^ circumflex/hat/caret
+ASCII 42: * star/asterisk ASCII 95: _ underscore
+ASCII 45: - hyphen ASCII 96: ` left quote
+ASCII 47: / slash ASCII 123: { left curly brace
+ASCII 58: : colon ASCII 124: | vert bar
+ASCII 59: ; semicolon ASCII 125: } right curly brace
+ ASCII 126: ~ tilde
+