I'd like to suggest a link to one of the more stable online sites for
programming algorithms or to the programmers own site as a way of
documenting this sort of thing. Maybe just a link to a http://www.yahoo.com
search for the name of the algorithm or to the foldocs site
http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/index.html.

For example: for crc's:
http://ink.yahoo.com/bin/query?p=crc+algorithm&hc=0&hs=0
or
http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?query=crc&action=Search

even if the links change (yahoo goes bust etc...) the fact that a general
search was linked should clue the future reader that this is a common
algorithm

James Newton mailto:jamesnewton@geocities.com phone:1-619-652-0593
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-----Original Message-----
From: pic microcontroller discussion list
[mailto:PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU]On Behalf Of William Chops Westfield
Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 1999 11:34 PM
To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: [OT] Re: How to write bad code - was Re: C vs. ASM


Surprisingly, one of the times that it is common NOT to comment very
verbosely is when the algorithm used is in fact VERY complex.  In this
case it's generally assumed that the code is documented extensively
EXTERNALLY (like, in books, papers, patents, and so on.)  For example,
I've never seen anyone attempt to extensively comment a routine that
calculates CRCs (either bitwise or bytewise.)  Your program is NOT
the place to explain why a series of shifts and xors ends up producing
coefficients for a polynomial...

BillW