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We had a manager with Theoretical Physics education from a top school who seriously suggested to ultimately solve QA by building a system to run the program th

by trhway 5y ago

We had a manager with Theoretical Physics education from a top school who seriously suggested to ultimately solve QA by building a system to run the program through all the possible combinations of branches/etc.

ampdepolymerase 5y ago
QA?
danwills 5y ago
For some types of system, searching through all possible rules for the behaviour that you want isn't out of the question, and can sometimes lead to finding a solution faster than wandering around in parameter-space (either along a directed path or randomly). A recommendation of this 'search-based' approach (where it can be used) instead of always constructing solutions is one of the 'new' aspects of Wolfram's "New Kind of Science". I believe that this ability to tolerate searching for a solution is a component of what can allow neural-nets to find solutions better than programmers would ever write. A NN will happily explore nonsensical or illogical bits of parameter-space where there are still some good solutions to be found in places where the 'rational' or 'logical' human mind wouldn't (or even couldn't?) go.
perl4ever 5y ago
Is your point that, taking it literally, it's infeasible, or that the suggestion amounted to fuzzing, which goes back decades?
philipswood 5y ago
Sometimes you can! Checkout: https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2014/01/27/theres-only-four-billion-floatsso-test-them-all/ https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2014/01/27/theres-only-fou... From it: Floating-point math is hard, but testing these functions is trivial, and fast. Just do it. The functions ceil, floor, and round are particularly easy to test because there are presumed-good CRT (C RunTime) functions that you can check them against. And, you can test every float bit-pattern (all four billion!) in about ninety seconds. It’s actually very easy. Just iterate through all four-billion (technically 2^32) bit patterns, call your test function, call your reference function, and make sure the results match. Properly comparing NaN and zero results takes a bit of care but it’s still not too bad.

by trhway 5y ago

ampdepolymerase 5y ago

QA?

danwills 5y ago

For some types of system, searching through all possible rules for the behaviour that you want isn't out of the question, and can sometimes lead to finding a solution faster than wandering around in parameter-space (either along a directed path or randomly). A recommendation of this 'search-based' approach (where it can be used) instead of always constructing solutions is one of the 'new' aspects of Wolfram's "New Kind of Science". I believe that this ability to tolerate searching for a solution is a component of what can allow neural-nets to find solutions better than programmers would ever write. A NN will happily explore nonsensical or illogical bits of parameter-space where there are still some good solutions to be found in places where the 'rational' or 'logical' human mind wouldn't (or even couldn't?) go.

perl4ever 5y ago

Is your point that, taking it literally, it's infeasible, or that the suggestion amounted to fuzzing, which goes back decades?

philipswood 5y ago

Sometimes you can! Checkout: https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2014/01/27/theres-only-four-billion-floatsso-test-them-all/ https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2014/01/27/theres-only-fou... From it: Floating-point math is hard, but testing these functions is trivial, and fast. Just do it. The functions ceil, floor, and round are particularly easy to test because there are presumed-good CRT (C RunTime) functions that you can check them against. And, you can test every float bit-pattern (all four billion!) in about ninety seconds. It’s actually very easy. Just iterate through all four-billion (technically 2^32) bit patterns, call your test function, call your reference function, and make sure the results match. Properly comparing NaN and zero results takes a bit of care but it’s still not too bad.