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Re: quantifying bloat

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Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:

> The notion of information complexity is just rubbish. There is no
> information without an observer. So there is no complexity in raw data.

I think you've misunderstood the word "information" in the phrase "information 
theory".  In that context, it doesn't have the normal English meaning 
(something similar to "knowledge" -- which must certainly have a "knower"), but 
has a narrow technical (jargon) meaning which is very roughly -- the 
information in a message is the [size of the] set of other messages which might 
have been transmitted instead.

That's very rough, of course, but it captures the important point that 
"information theory" isn't about information, as that word is normally 
understood, at all.

That definition (the real version, or my paraphrase) only applies when there is 
a known set of potential messages to consider.  So it doesn't directly apply to 
just one program (what set is that program drawn from?), but it is very common 
to wave ones hands a bit, and treat individual passages from the text as if 
drawn from a set which is exemplified by the whole (available) program.  In 
which case, it becomes possible to talk of the information-density of "the 
program" (I don't like this misuse of words myself, I think it's confusing, 
although there is a perfectly well-defined concept there)

So, consider a program made of many function definitions (or lines, or classes 
or whatever).  If knowing the text of all the other function definitions gives 
you a better guess of the text of some arbitrarily chosen remaining one than 
you would have if you did the same exercise with a different program, then the 
first is definitely more redundant/compressible than the second.  The 
hypothesis here is that similar reasoning might justify the claim that the 
first was more "bloated" than the second.

I think that one could use that sort of technique to identify programs where a 
lot of copy-paste repetition exists, and that is certainly something one 
/could/ label as "bloat" -- for all it's not the only meaning of "bloat", nor 
does that label really capture the essence of what's wrong with the code.

    -- chris 

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quantifying bloat bob <bob@coolfone.comze.com> - 2012-04-27 08:56 -0700
  Re: quantifying bloat hopcode <hopcode@invalid.de> - 2012-04-27 18:16 +0200
    Re: quantifying bloat Nomen Nescio <nobody@dizum.com> - 2012-04-29 16:22 +0200
  Re: quantifying bloat "Chris Uppal" <chris.uppal@metagnostic.REMOVE-THIS.org> - 2012-04-29 10:03 +0100
    Re: quantifying bloat "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2012-04-29 11:36 +0200
      Re: quantifying bloat Daniel Pitts <newsgroup.nospam@virtualinfinity.net> - 2012-04-29 15:09 -0700
        Re: quantifying bloat "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2012-04-30 10:09 +0200
      Re: quantifying bloat "Chris Uppal" <chris.uppal@metagnostic.REMOVE-THIS.org> - 2012-05-01 08:53 +0100
        Re: quantifying bloat "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2012-05-01 10:52 +0200
          Re: quantifying bloat hopcode <hopcode@invalid.de> - 2012-05-02 04:02 +0200
          Re: quantifying bloat "Chris Uppal" <chris.uppal@metagnostic.REMOVE-THIS.org> - 2012-05-05 10:03 +0100
            Re: quantifying bloat "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2012-05-05 12:50 +0200
              Re: quantifying bloat hopcode <hopcode@invalid.de> - 2012-05-05 16:23 +0200
                Re: quantifying bloat "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2012-05-05 17:43 +0200
      Re: quantifying bloat gremnebulin <peterdjones@yahoo.com> - 2012-05-03 09:27 -0700
        Re: quantifying bloat "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2012-05-03 18:50 +0200
          Re: quantifying bloat Willem <willem@toad.stack.nl> - 2012-05-04 13:52 +0000
            Re: quantifying bloat "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2012-05-04 16:05 +0200
              Re: quantifying bloat hopcode <hopcode@invalid.de> - 2012-05-04 20:44 +0200
                Re: quantifying bloat Willem <willem@toad.stack.nl> - 2012-05-04 20:32 +0000
                Re: quantifying bloat "Chris Uppal" <chris.uppal@metagnostic.REMOVE-THIS.org> - 2012-05-05 10:16 +0100
    Re: quantifying bloat James Dow Allen <jdallen2000@yahoo.com> - 2012-05-02 02:44 -0700
      Re: quantifying bloat "Chris Uppal" <chris.uppal@metagnostic.REMOVE-THIS.org> - 2012-05-05 10:11 +0100
        Re: quantifying bloat "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2012-05-05 13:22 +0200
          Re: quantifying bloat hopcode <hopcode@invalid.de> - 2012-05-05 16:27 +0200
  Re: quantifying bloat rossum <rossum48@coldmail.com> - 2012-04-29 11:01 +0100

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