[GTALUG] programming system questions

[o1bigtenor]

On Thu, Oct 11, 2018 at 9:32 AM David Thornton via talk <talk at gtalug.org> wrote:
>
> This is a chance for me to test my understanding by trying to explain it myself.
>
> Monte Carlo is where you randomly choose solutions from a solution space and then try to make the results better for each choice.
>
> Imagine you are trying to find the highest point on earth. Rather than scan the entire earth to find the highest point, you choose a sample of points and then see if there is something higher near-by.
>
> This is _in general_ more efficient than scanning the whole earth, but of course there is a change that you miss Everest.
>
> Consider the alternative approach of choosing a point and then looking for higher points nearby ( aka Gradient Descent). Suppose you started somewhere in Britain... you might scan the local area and come to the conclusion that snowdon is the highest place in the world.
>
> Now image that you do this 100 time, and then compare the local bests of those 100 attempts. You are more likely to find the highest point. That's monte carlo I think.

Its a little different than that but you're headed in the right direction.
The process was developed as the first atomic bomb was being developed
in the USA (fascinating as a large number of those scientists were
expat Germans (early 1940s to 1945).
>
> Anyway, I'm not sure this has anything to do with what the OP is talking about.
>
> If I understand he/she wants to recreate an app.  Does that mean reverse engineer? Are you trying to recreate someone else's app without direct access to that app?
>
> Are you trying to examine interactions with the app and predict what the app will do, and hence "simulate" the app?
>
> You might also consider creating a _smart_ proxy, that lets you cache results locally such that if you ask for the same thing a second time it's comes back faster.
>
> Additionally by implementing a proxy , you can populate your own copy of what ever data the original service is providing and study that for the purposes of reverse engineering.
>
> This sounds like a great conversation to have over a $drink, and/or in front of a white board.

I like your last idea except I would have to travel about 2500 km and
that produces its own 'fun'.

Thank you for your ideas/assistance and if you know an easy way to
communicate 'chat at remote' - - - well I'm listening.

Dee