Travis Crump wrote: > > Phillip M. Jones, C.E.T. wrote: > > >The Type/Creator code system is not such a bad idea. remember you have 4 > >places in creator code and Type code. You can concevieably use any of > >the 26 letters in the alphabet in each place. I hope my math is right > >but the are 26 to the fourth power different combinations in each. so > >there are almost infinite possibilities. > > > Have you ever heard of the problem of how many people you need in a room > for two of them to have the same birthday? 26^4 is not a very big > number if it means that two programs can't coexist. I have on the order > of 4-500 programs on my computer. Assuming that the Creator codes were > randomly chosen, this means that I would have a 20% chance that two of > them would have the same creator code. Once you have 800 programs on > your computer, you have 50-50 odds of their being a conflict, how lucky > are you? Once you have on the order of 2000 programs, your odds drop > below 1% of their _not_ being a conflict, someone must really be looking > out for you at that point, and 2000 is not infinite by anyone's > definition. I'll give you that about 400 of my programs are the GNU > tools that come with cygwin and would probably be compatibility tested > with each other, but I still have about 100 normal windows programs for > which I can't reasonably assume that they(ie creators) even know that > the other programs on my computer exist let alone did compatibility > testing so the choice of creator codes would be more or less random. I > would still have a 1% chance of conflict which in the world of computers > where 5 9 reliability is bandied around is not really that low... 26^4 > is hardly infinite... Don't want to start another flame war, but I just > thought I'd point that out...
You do have to remember though that the 26^4 possibility is just for the Type Code or the Creator code by itself. If you consider both together that means that there are 26^4 permutations for the Type Code and 26^4 permutations for creator code. how about the three letter extension system in DOS/windows that's only 26^3. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Phillip M. Jones, CET |MEMBER:VPEA (LIFE) ETA-I, NESDA,ISCET, Sterling 616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:275-632-0868 Martinsville Va 24112-1809 |[EMAIL PROTECTED], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet --------------------------------------------------------------------------- If it's "fixed", don't "break it"! mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/america/default.htm http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/message/default.htm
