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8

Sorry, but you're wrong. This is a super, super, super bad question. If you trim away all the useless rambling crap, you get "I want to choose a person, but they might not be in the office. How can I do this?" When "put the names in a hat and draw" is a valid answer, it's a bad question.
– user229044
Commented Jul 24, 2013 at 20:52
1

@meagar You clearly haven't read the question. The only part that may be construed as “useless rambling” is the introduction, mostly the picture. “Put the names in a hat and draw” does not meet the hard requirements, and even after applying the minimum necessary fix, it isn't a good answer.
– Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
Commented Jul 24, 2013 at 20:57
1

I really don't understand why you think this is a high quality question. "The choice of metrics is an interesting modeling problem" The choice of metrics shouldn't be part of the problem the answerers are supposed to solve. If you come up with conflicting requirements like random but "fair", you need to make it concrete. "Fair" to within what number of croissant runs? Otherwise all discussion and voting on the answers relies on an attribute of the algorithm that has nothing to do with programming.
– user200500
Commented Jul 24, 2013 at 20:58
4

Really? How do you define an "algorithm", except as a set of steps to follow? He said he "can" have a server, but didn't stipulate that he needed anything more than the algorithm. He didn't tell us a language, or request pseudo code, or give us anything resembling useful information. He asked for an algorithm for something so trivial that my one sentence answer ("put names in hat and draw") fits. Everything else was useless except to demonstrating his ignorance of the subject matter.
– user229044
Commented Jul 24, 2013 at 20:58
1

@Asad The choice of metrics is part of the problem. This isn't a pure coding problem, and I do expect the coding to be easy. The modeling is part of the problem. Modeling of this kind is part of the work of a programmer. Arguably, it's not part of the work of a code monkey — but is Stack Overflow really solely about code monkeys?
– Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
Commented Jul 24, 2013 at 21:01
1

@Gilles Modeling a process is distinct from coming up with definite requirements for a process. The latter has to precede the former, and should always be the job of the OP.
– user200500
Commented Jul 24, 2013 at 21:05
2

@Asad Nonsense. Coming up with definite requirements is part of the modeling job. It's part of programming. Stack Overflow is about programming; there's more to programming than writing code.
– Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
Commented Jul 24, 2013 at 21:11
4

Sigh, I'm glad I don't work in the same office as you. We'd always be making nuclear power plants out of bike sheds. As it is, I bow to your superior arguments.
– Mark Booth
Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 0:36

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