friedl@vsi.UUCP (Stephen J. Friedl) (04/13/88)
Hiho net.people,
I've a couple of random questions that seemed to fit the
definition of miscellany. First, there has been some talk in the
office about the term "Heuristic algorithms". I thought I
learned that algorithms always terminated in finite time with the
correct solution while heuristics gave a decent try but are
guaranteed only to eat up CPU time. Is the above an oxymoron?
It was on the cover of Byte last year.
Second, in my Formal Languages and Automata class, there are
references to the "Kleene star". Does anybody *know* how this
name is pronounced? The consensus is that it is just like
"clean" but there are those who want to say "clean-ee" (two
syllables).
Thanks, I feel so much better asking these. Responses via
Email would be most helpful.
Steve
--
Steve Friedl V-Systems, Inc. "Yes, I'm jeff@unh's brother"
friedl@vsi.com {backbones}!vsi.com!friedl attmail!vsi!friedl