Library Entry - Flame Sculptures
Jeet Stories:
Contacts - Jeet “the Geek” Pringtip – Combat Specialist?
Cheated?!?
“Cheated?!?” The young man rose from his chair and thumped the desk with his fist, anger clearly displayed on his face.
“You have been cheating students in this class since you arrived!” The finger was pointed directly at the chest of Teaching Assistant Ushlaim Liu on the other side of the desk. Jeet Pringtip was somewhat thankful there was a desk between them. Expulsion would occur if he struck a Teaching Assistant, no matter what the provocation.
“Review of your program definitively shows only four specific case responses to inputs. All four of the cases are exactly what is in the parameters for the program test. Deny it!” Teaching Assistant Liu was also angry. His methods were unassailable, he thought, and followed standard test protocols.
“Three of the cases are so fringe as to be statistically improbable! And therefore invalid! I don’t doubt that the instances occurred. However, are they likely to ever occur, again? One of the cases is so bizarre, it likely won’t occur again in our universe. For two of the others, one would occur on the order of once in ten thousand, and the other one in a few thousand. What are we trying to create? Sentient programs? My error trapping would have paused the program and requested input. Nothing that would harm a person, or equipment. Any situation in which the robot paused for input would be one where sophonts were directly supervising the robot, anyway. The sophonts would likely pause the robot to give directions before the error trap triggered. In two of your ‘cases’ it is likely that my program would have responded within parameters. And, by doing the programming my way, I’ve saved 40% of the memory space, and increased processing time by 10%.” Jeet was almost spitting in frustration.
“The program will work in 95% of the cases, as ‘my’ test program has proven, and done it efficiently. Far more efficiently than anyone else’s. We shouldn’t be writing programs for solving every possible instance. We should be writing programs that cover regular day-to-day challenges. My program meets that parameter.” Jeet sat abruptly and crossed his arms. “I want an Informal Review.”
“The results will be the same. You programmed specifically to pass the test, not to meet the programming design parameters.” Assistant Liu was smug.
Jeet left the Assistant’s office fuming, but resolved to prove his point. Yes, he’d programmed to specifically beat the test, but the test was a crock. Too many other students had failed, because the test was for things that were so unlikely as to be inconceivable. Which is why most failed. Jeet just happened to have gotten a heads-up from a friendly source, and patched the parameters into his project.
Jeet spent the two weeks between filing the Informal Review request and the resultant meeting studying hard. He researched and interviewed, studied and programmed, tested and documented with a passion. In the two weeks, he barely ate or slept.
The Informal Review ended up exonerating Jeet, and resulted in more realistic testing parameters. Fellow students were elated, as their programs now also passed the evaluation. Jeet also got a commendation from the Faculty. Teaching Assistant Lui wasn’t discredited, but took the results as a personal insult to his position and abilities. Assistant Lui wouldn’t forget this. Ever.
PS: In the row of the Informal Review, nobody questioned how Jeet got the original test parameters in the first place.
