From: John Stalker <stalker@maths.tcd.ie>
To: erik quanstrom <quanstro@speakeasy.net>,
Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@cse.psu.edu>
Subject: Re: [9fans] More Microsoft bashing
Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2005 10:47:46 +0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <200512161047.aa99386@salmon.maths.tcd.ie> (raw)
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 15 Dec 2005 22:53:06 CST." <20051216045306.126521B12F3@dexter-peak.quanstro.net>
> |
> | So, what *is* -5 MOD 3?
> |
>
> -2
I hope not. If you are really serious about using modular arithmetic
then you probably want to use something like PARI GP where -5 mod 3
is -5 mod 3, belonging to the data type of integers mod 3. -2 mod 3
and 1 mod 3 are alternate representations of the same value. If you
aren't serious about modular arithmetic and want the result to be an
integer then I think you are shooting yourself in the foot if you
implement it as anything other than -5 mod 3 == 1. I want to be able
to test whether n is odd with `if ( n % 2 == 1 ) ...' Of course, I'm
a mathematician rather than a CS person, but I think the other
convention has nothing to recommend it.
--
John Stalker
University of Dublin, Trinity College
School of Mathematics
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2005-12-16 10:47 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 24+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2005-12-16 4:04 Jack Johnson
2005-12-16 4:51 ` Dan Cross
2005-12-16 5:02 ` Dan Cross
2005-12-16 5:33 ` erik quanstrom
2005-12-16 5:38 ` Bruce Ellis
2005-12-16 10:46 ` Charles Forsyth
2005-12-16 13:13 ` Dan Cross
2005-12-16 4:53 ` erik quanstrom
2005-12-16 5:08 ` Dan Cross
2005-12-16 5:19 ` Brian L. Stuart
2005-12-16 5:27 ` Bruce Ellis
2005-12-16 14:19 ` Brantley Coile
2005-12-16 15:13 ` Bruce Ellis
2005-12-16 15:29 ` Russ Cox
2005-12-16 16:00 ` Bruce Ellis
2005-12-17 0:26 ` Jack Johnson
2005-12-17 3:59 ` Bruce Ellis
2005-12-16 15:33 ` Brantley Coile
2005-12-16 10:47 ` John Stalker [this message]
2005-12-16 14:25 ` Brantley Coile
2005-12-16 14:51 ` Gorka guardiola
2005-12-16 22:28 ` Victor Nazarov
2005-12-17 11:09 ` David Leimbach
2005-12-17 11:24 ` David Leimbach
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