Talk:Palindrome detection: Difference between revisions
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:::: Since "non-computational" systems like human brain can recognize palindromicity in many different context, and humans do not read strings, but sentences/words, and blanks/punctuations are "naturally" ignored (and difference between upper and lowercase), being just a way to make it easier to recognize words and read sentences. Computational systems can identify as "naturally different" "A" and "a", and spaces/tabs/puncts are not just blank or "spurious" symbols to help reading, they are existing real symbols for the system. A general "computational" palindromicity test can operate on any symbol a computer can recognize as such (even on "unreadable" sequences of bytes, provided you avoid '\0' in C and similar langs where a string is '\0' terminated). To go back and forth to the "non-computational" "sight", it is enough to add/remove stripblanks, strippunct, lowercase/uppercase and other transformation able to make computer ignores the difference human "naturally" can ignore. But it is not necessary, and the general palindromicity approach is well, more general, and so, better since can be used '''also''' for your "non-computational" definition. --[[User:ShinTakezou|ShinTakezou]] 06:17, 13 July 2010 (UTC) |
:::: Since "non-computational" systems like human brain can recognize palindromicity in many different context, and humans do not read strings, but sentences/words, and blanks/punctuations are "naturally" ignored (and difference between upper and lowercase), being just a way to make it easier to recognize words and read sentences. Computational systems can identify as "naturally different" "A" and "a", and spaces/tabs/puncts are not just blank or "spurious" symbols to help reading, they are existing real symbols for the system. A general "computational" palindromicity test can operate on any symbol a computer can recognize as such (even on "unreadable" sequences of bytes, provided you avoid '\0' in C and similar langs where a string is '\0' terminated). To go back and forth to the "non-computational" "sight", it is enough to add/remove stripblanks, strippunct, lowercase/uppercase and other transformation able to make computer ignores the difference human "naturally" can ignore. But it is not necessary, and the general palindromicity approach is well, more general, and so, better since can be used '''also''' for your "non-computational" definition. --[[User:ShinTakezou|ShinTakezou]] 06:17, 13 July 2010 (UTC) |
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::::: Sure, understood. I think people are just pointing out that the task description was not as clear to some of us as you wanted it to be, partly because the term "palindrome" is not actually defined in the task. The linked Wikipedia article focuses mostly on natural language palindromes, as does the Latin example. As a linguist myself, I admit I find those more interesting than formal strings, and both are valid. For your more restrictive and computationally general idea, maybe specifying a formal mathematical statement of a palindromic sequence would have helped. In any case, the one type of solution is convertible to the other with a little extra string handling, so it's not a huge deal. And thanks for the explanations of your POV. --[[User:Snoman|Snoman]] 08:39, 13 July 2010 (UTC) |
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