Update "a**b" writting to "a^b" in diffie-hellman description #1933
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| Bob calculates | ||
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| s = A**b mod p | ||
| s = A^b mod p | ||
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| The calculations produce the same result! Alice and Bob now share | ||
| secret s. |
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I would like to suggest adding a note be added at the end of this document that mentions that in some programming languages ** is used as the method to indicate exponentiations instead of ^.
I think just replacing one form for another doesn't necessarily clear up the confusion for everyone, just shifts it.
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Might it be better to remove any implementation dependent form and instead use the mathematical form? (i.e. aᵇ).
That is what is being described after all.
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Hard agree with @wolf99 comment. For example, in Python, ^ is used as a set operator, which is why ** is used for exponentiation. It varies widely by programming language.
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@wolf99 I like your suggestion, however I worry about how the special character will translate for users. If there is no concern to worry about then 👍 from me too.
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I feel exactly like @rpottsoh : would aᵇ render properly in any IDE for people downloading the exercise through CLI?
I would like to suggest adding a note be added at the end of this document that mentions that in some programming languages
**is used as the method to indicate exponentiations instead of^.
The note might just mention that a^b means "a raised to the power of b", or "aaa*...*a" b times", so that the description only uses mathematics and no programming conventions?
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We have other exercises that use them. If an IDE can't display standard characters like that, it's most likely a deliberate choice by the student to use an archaic IDE and make their life hard.
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Thus, I see no reason not to use this notation. I'll make a new commit.
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deliberate choice by the student to use archaic IDE
I use ed (not always) and it displays it, so I wonder if you mean "IDE that sucks" rather than archaic.
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Instead of trying to abstract it away:
s = (A to the power of b) mod p
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Please squash when we have files like .vs that should never be in the history |
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I remembered the request that it be removed from the pull request, and since I saw Erik's approval, I did not bother to check (It was not removed from the pull request, only removed as a file). I did not bother to check that it was actually removed from the request. |
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I'm surprised the repo settings even allow anything but squash-merges (cc @iHiD) |
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EBWODP: We should have the discussion of acceptable ways to merge elsewhere, in #1934 . It is not apparently from the title of this pull request that it may contain this discussion. |
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Who is EBWODP? I do not know what that means, and there seems to be no indication in this forum what that means. |
Ehm, but it was 90617be? There is no such thing as checking in a directory in git, a directory only ever exists if it has files in it. |
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You are right Erik, the reference to the vs file was carried over from the prior reference to that as a file, rather than the files in the directory. |
Creation of the diffie-hellman-description-simplifying branch
Rewriting from "a**b" to "a^b" for expressing exponentiation