Open thread, Jul. 11 - Jul. 17, 2016

MrMind

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

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If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

Thanks for posting this link, it contains a good illustration of the problem of using separate encoder/decoder implementations.

See how they have separate encoder/decoder implementations on page 8/9 of the document? That strategy is very very error prone. It is very hard for the programmer to ensure that the encoder and decoder are performing exactly the same updates, and even the slightest off-by-one error will cause the process to fail completely (I spent many hours trying to debug sync problems like this). This problem becomes more painful as you attempt to build more and more sophisticated compressors.

With my library, there is no separation of encoder and decoder logic; it is effectively the same code. That basically guarantees there will be no sync problems. Since I developed this technique I haven't had any sync problems.