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I agree that this is moronic, but I'm afraid AxelBoldt has a point about many people using it this way. This distinction even makes it into a footnote in the not that technical book ''[[Darwin's Dangerous Idea]]'' (p. 52). --[[User:Ryguasu|Ryguasu]] 05:29 Jan 12, 2003 (UTC)
:I just want to add that non-deterministic, applied to algorithms, does not mean non-terminating. Non-deterministics processes are ones that arrive at the set of choices, from recurring multiple choices, straightaway. That is, behavior is as if they make the right choice every time. This overcomes a problem with deterministic processes where a number of very bad choices done first can lead to expenditure of extreme effort, and for some methods there is no perfect first choice. (The famous P = NP question is about a comparison of certain kinds of deterministic procedures and non-deterministic procedures for the same problem.) --[[User:Orcmid|Orcmid]] 01:45, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
:Hmm, I also want to add that if the random integer procedure uses some source of input not given at the start (say some source of thermal noise), the procedure doesn't qualify as an algorithm either, in the usual strong sense. That is, algorithms of the kind that are the usual focus of attention are ones where all inputs are known in advance and someone could sit down and produce exactly the same result from the given initial input and the procedure. For a human procedure, you could probably ask the person to throw dice and other things, but there is some question whether this would qualify, even though it can certainly be carried out. This strong sense of algorithm is not meant to rule out other (computational) procedures, and many computational procedures realized with computers are not algorithmic. There's no shame. [[Donald Knuth]] gives some additional categories in Chapter 1.1 of [[The Art of Computer Programming]], and that is probably a perfectly usable separation. --[[User:Orcmid|Orcmid]] 01:45, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
=== Vegnere Cipher ===
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