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From: swf@elsegundoca.ncr.com (Stan Friesen)
Subject: Re: Comparing productivity: LisP against C++ (was Re: Reference Counting)
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References: <19941203T221402Z.enag@naggum.no> <BUFF.94Dec15103904@pravda.world> <D0xAIp.3Dn@rheged.dircon.co.uk> <vrotneyD11MDv.Ks7@netcom.com> <vogtD12y8D.HLL@netcom.com> <3d5alh$6j7@celebrian.otago.ac.nz> <vrotneyD13o6z.92L@netcom.com>
Date: Tue, 20 Dec 1994 20:26:10 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.lang.c++:104255 comp.lang.lisp:16117

In article <vrotneyD13o6z.92L@netcom.com>, vrotney@netcom.com (William Paul Vrotney) writes:
|> that should obviously be done in C.  Here is my challenge:
|> 
|>  "You are given spectral sound files representing frequency, amplitude,
|>  bandwidth and time of sounds picked up by hydrophones in the ocean.  You are
|>  looking for torpedo sounds but the hydrophones pick up the sounds of the
|>  ship dragging the hydrophones and other miscellaneous noise in the ocean.
|>  Develop an existing standard blackboard system shell and source model and
|>  discover the blackboard level abstractions that allow the top level of the
|>  blackboard to identify a torpedo source specified in the source model.
|>  Hint1: Use the harmonic structure of sound sources for source modeling and
|>  identification.  Hint2: You need to consult with human experts on torpedo
|>  sounds and do many experiments with that data to develop the rules."

This is, in some ways, both overspecified and underspecified.

It contains in the problem definition some implementation details
(for instance is the "blackboard" paradigm really required by the
problem to be solved, or is it merely the traditional way to
handle this sort of problem in Lisp?).

On the other hand, a full specification needs to at least *refer*
to a spectral decomposition of torpedo nose.  Or, to put it another
way - I would follow Hint2 *before* I even started designing, let alone
coding, and would consider that time to be independent of the programming
effort, and therefore independent of the language I was using to implement.
Without the results of Hint2, I consider the problem spec incomplete.

Now, I can see that it might take months to gather the data required,
but I do not see that much programming is really necessary to do so,
just sound experimental design, and a decent mathematical model.
[Oh, I might use Macsyma or some such thing to manipulate the
mathematical model while tuning it - but that is not really
necessary to the process].

[P.S. are you sure that project isn't classified?].

-- 
swf@elsegundoca.attgis.com		sarima@netcom.com

The peace of God be with you.
