Ramble On

Haven’t updated my GSoC status in a while… I just added the prime counting function ( π(x) for all the nerds) which is just a simple for loop that uses is_prime().  Of course there is a better way to do that, but I’m going to save making algorithimic improvements for the optimizes phase.  There is [...]

I’ve just commited an extended test (in the XT directory) that tests is_prime() against all primes less than 20,000,000.  They pass.  Huzzah.  The next step will be to document and write some more examples and then benchmark Math::Primality (esp. vs. PARI, the module we’d like to replace).  I’d also like to have an XT that [...]

So I’ve commited some changes to the documentation for Math::Primality.  Just some stuff that is a little more substaintainal – diving into what the functions actually do and a little bit of math.  I also cited our primary sources and re-ordered and removed some unnecessary stuff. Next on the docket – extended tests (XT) and [...]

Well, that was nice.  We (the youth group of Knox Presbyterian Church + alumni + adults, 154 strong) went to Cedar Rapids, IA to do disaster relief with AmeriCorps.  We built a very sweet lady’s house. Psalm 127:1 – “Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain.” Hebrews 3:4 – “For every [...]

I made a relatively minor commit – added some tests to test the next_prime funtion over small primes and some POD documentation to the module itself. I’ll be out of town / off the grid for a week starting about 10 minutes from now until the 13th.  I’ll be with my old church in Naperville, [...]

Preached my first sermon at the young adult service (called Godsearch”) at the Vineyard in Urbana, IL.  You can find the MP3 and the entire podcast at the Godsearch website. Feedback – irenic or polemical – welcomed, encouraged, and appreciated.

Instead of sleeping or doing homework, I decided to just add some tests and get that function I wrote working.  The bug, surprisingly, was not in the massive chunk of code but in the way I was passing arguments to Math::GMPz (surprise surprise I suck at checking my arguments).  A little love from perl -d [...]

The only part that was remaining for the is_strong_lucas_pseudoprime function was either a massive block of indecpheriable code composed of unprounceable variables and seemingly random function calls and for loops in the reference code (a fun little C program that has everything and the kitchen sink) or a sentence in the reference PDF.  Ugh. Turns [...]

Minor updates that caused major headaches for Math::Primality.  With this commit, some methods are refactored and they now have tests.  The headaches this time were discovered the hard way – passing the wrong type to Math::GMPz (or any other code that couples with C libraries) will causes segfaults and unhelpful error messages.  All of my [...]