Talk:Factors of an integer: Difference between revisions

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Should this be "Basic language learning"? I don't even know. Oligomous 12:10, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

This is a bit too similar to Prime decomposition for my taste. --IanOsgood 15:48, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

The Clojure, ~~Python~~, ~~Ruby~~ and ~~Tcl~~ examples are all wrong; they omit the number itself which is always a factor (just as 1 is). Oops! --Donal Fellows (not logging in on this computer; don't own it...)

No they are not wrong as such, the task description is very woolly. Do we mean integer factors? What about negative factors? Do we include zero?

The task specification needs to be tightened up, so following what was given would most likely fit what was envisaged, but I should have flaagged for clarification. --Paddy3118 03:19, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

If 1 is deemed to be a factor of 42, then so must 42 be; Wikipedia agrees with me. I've never heard of anyone defining factors for anything other than positive integers and in terms of positive integers; if I remember my schooling, it's usually a lead-in to talking about prime numbers. The wikipedia article also talks about "proper divisors", which is what the examples here were originally delivering, but that's probably not the best way to fix this task. --Donal Fellows

task description

The first sentence should be "Find the factors of a positive integer.", as the second sentence goes on to define what the factors are of a positive integer, not a number. -- Gerard Schildberger 04:57, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

The last preamble sentence in the Rosetta Code task:

Note that even prime numbers will have will have at least two factors; ‘1’ and themselves.

would read better as:

Note that all prime numbers will have exactly two factors: unity and the prime number itself.

When I first read the above (original) sentence, I thought: "why single out the even prime (as there is only one of those, namely 2), ··· and exclude the odd primes? -- Gerard Schildberger (talk) 23:23, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Also, worthy of note is: All semiprimes (also known as biprimes or 2-almost primes) have exactly three factors: unity and two (not necessarily distinct) primes. -- Gerard Schildberger (talk) 23:23, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Python relative performance

Hi Ledrug, care to join us over on Talk:Proper_divisors#Python:_comparisons... --Paddy3118 (talk) 08:45, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

@@ Line 14: / Line 14: @@
 The first sentence should be "Find the factors of a positive integer.", as the second sentence goes on to define what the factors are of a positive integer, not a number. -- [[User:Gerard Schildberger|Gerard Schildberger]] 04:57, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
+The last preamble sentence in the Rosetta Code task:
+::* &nbsp; ''Note that even prime numbers will have will have at least two factors; ‘1’ and themselves.''
+would read better as:
+::* &nbsp; ''Note that''  &nbsp; all &nbsp; ''prime numbers will have'' &nbsp; exactly two &nbsp; ''factors: &nbsp; unity and the prime number itself''.
+<br>When I first read the above (original) sentence, I thought: &nbsp; "why single out the even prime (as there is only one of those, namely &nbsp; <big>2</big>), &nbsp; ··· and exclude the odd primes? &nbsp; -- [[User:Gerard Schildberger|Gerard Schildberger]] ([[User talk:Gerard Schildberger|talk]]) 23:23, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
+<br><br>Also, worthy of note is: &nbsp; All &nbsp; '''semiprimes''' &nbsp; (also known as '''biprimes''' or '''2-almost primes''') &nbsp; have exactly three factors: &nbsp; unity and two (not necessarily distinct) primes. &nbsp; -- [[User:Gerard Schildberger|Gerard Schildberger]] ([[User talk:Gerard Schildberger|talk]]) 23:23, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 ==Python relative performance==