3 ms·

I'm sure there are simpler ways to explain it, I'm new to the topic, sorry if you didn't like it.

subjoriented 8y ago
I don't think anything you wrote is wrong! I have a background in error codes - hamming, and luby and raptor and, and, and. Reed-Solomon is particularly "beautiful" from a mathematics perspective (more so than Raptor) - something I can usually explain to anyone and get them interested.
- kragen 8y ago
  Do you want to give it a try? I just attempted to explain RS in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19248444 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19248444 but I am significantly impeded by the fact that I don't actually understand it myself, so I'm sort of summarizing the Wikipedia article. Am I focusing on the right algorithms? Did I explain them correctly, as far as my short explanation goes?
isoprophlex 8y ago
Well it might not be the most in depth explanation, but your enthusiasm is appreciated, and contagious too. I'm down the Wikipedia rabbit hole too, now.
- dnautics 8y ago
  if you want to learn finite fields somewhat more formally, but not so formally, this is a pretty good introduction (yes, it's for AES, but the principles are the same): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1v2tX4_dkQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1v2tX4_dkQ
_underfl0w_ 8y ago
The explanation from BackBlaze that you linked to goes into more depth. It looks to be built on matrix algebra. Kinda nifty how simple and elegant the underlying concept is, really. Reminds me of the surprising conceptual simplicity behind Diffie-Hellman.
- planteen 8y ago
  I guess simple is relative, but in my opinion, coding theory is not simple. It requires some high level math to understand what is going on. Many people's eyes will glaze over when you go into Galois (finite) fields. Abstract algebra is not part of the typical undegrad CS/engineering math curriculum. And then the efficient algorithms for the decoding procedure were found much later than Reed & Solomon's original paper by Berlekamp.
  - JadeNB 8y ago
    > Abstract algebra is not part of the typical undegrad CS/engineering math curriculum. It should be (says the mathematician)! That it doesn't probably comes from confusing the elegant theoretical perspective on finite fields to the computational perspective, which (at least from my pure-math point of view) can get pretty hairy.

I don't think anything you wrote is wrong! I have a background in error codes - hamming, and luby and raptor and, and, and. Reed-Solomon is particularly "beautiful" from a mathematics perspective (more so than Raptor) - something I can usually explain to anyone and get them interested.

kragen 8y ago
Do you want to give it a try? I just attempted to explain RS in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19248444 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19248444 but I am significantly impeded by the fact that I don't actually understand it myself, so I'm sort of summarizing the Wikipedia article. Am I focusing on the right algorithms? Did I explain them correctly, as far as my short explanation goes?

isoprophlex 8y ago

Well it might not be the most in depth explanation, but your enthusiasm is appreciated, and contagious too. I'm down the Wikipedia rabbit hole too, now.

dnautics 8y ago
if you want to learn finite fields somewhat more formally, but not so formally, this is a pretty good introduction (yes, it's for AES, but the principles are the same): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1v2tX4_dkQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1v2tX4_dkQ

_underfl0w_ 8y ago

The explanation from BackBlaze that you linked to goes into more depth. It looks to be built on matrix algebra. Kinda nifty how simple and elegant the underlying concept is, really. Reminds me of the surprising conceptual simplicity behind Diffie-Hellman.

planteen 8y ago
I guess simple is relative, but in my opinion, coding theory is not simple. It requires some high level math to understand what is going on. Many people's eyes will glaze over when you go into Galois (finite) fields. Abstract algebra is not part of the typical undegrad CS/engineering math curriculum. And then the efficient algorithms for the decoding procedure were found much later than Reed & Solomon's original paper by Berlekamp.
- JadeNB 8y ago
  > Abstract algebra is not part of the typical undegrad CS/engineering math curriculum. It should be (says the mathematician)! That it doesn't probably comes from confusing the elegant theoretical perspective on finite fields to the computational perspective, which (at least from my pure-math point of view) can get pretty hairy.