Simulated annealing [was: Re: what to do]

[tomas]

On Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 02:32:11AM +0200, Miroslav Silovic wrote:
> Tom Lord <address@hidden> writes:
> 

[...]

> > I think that these problems may very well be inevitable with the
> > bazaar model of development.  When everyone just starts piling on
> > features and contributing uncoordinated design suggestions, there is
> > a tendency just to wander aimlessly around the design space until
> > externally imposed backward compatability requirements freeze
> > progress.  You could argue that that's good: that the random walk
> > proceeds until it hits a feature set that people like.  But you
> > could also argue that that's bad: a direct walk to a moderately
> > distant high ground is pretty much ruled out, in the absence of
> > full-time team of core developers with a shared vision.
> 
> Oh, but it's simulated annealing!
> 

Hear, hear!

I keep telling this to my friends, especially when they get upset
about several free projects serving similar goals (in free software
it's more of `genetic annealing' since projects may steal ideas and
even sometimes code from each other). In GA you have to keep a
population to masimize your chances of getting at a good solution.

You stole *my* idea ;-)

(getting off-topic about this excitement)

Regards
-- tomas