langreiter.com plain, simple: comment-2002-11-26-1

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comment-2002-11-26-1

CREATED BY David Ness • LAST EDITED BY David Ness 8129 days AGO

I find the MPS article unconvincing. Perhaps it is because I don't understand the problem domain. But maybe I can make my concern clear in the hope that someone will be able to point me in the direction of better understanding it.

First, any piece that keeps talking about `thirty-person years' makes me suspicious. As a `consumer' I care little how much energy went into something. I'd much rather have an idea so great that it took the implementor only 5 minutes once he/she saw it rather than an idea so questionnable that you could pour 30 years of effort into it and still have as little to show as appears in this paper.

Second, I can't find any very clear statement in the paper of what `problem' these elaborate techniques actually `solve'. Even more important, I don't get a clue if the collapse in memory prices impacts the value of this kind of solution in any way (for example, if we have huge amounts of memory available, do crude and obvious techniques obviate the need for the kind of measures discussed in the paper)?

I'd be interested if someone can clue me in on the possible value of any of this.