[plt-scheme] Re: please help with generating random permutation

Hi Thomas,

I'm not so sure about the fairness. I think it's not always easy to  
define what really IS fair in a given situation.
Personally,  I would see fairness less in the line of  
"uniformity" (everyone gets the same amount of every piece, whether he  
likes a piece or not) than of  "to each according to his needs" (not  
being a Marxist otherwise, this sentence I really like).

For example in this situation, what I originally proposed was to have  
everyone who wants state his preferences regarding weekdays (with the  
amb operator I use, this would be easy to add). Up till now, there was  
not much resonance for this, but perhaps it's because people tend to  
assume they have similar preferences or needs - which in my experience  
need not be true at all. E.g. in this example, I would in fact prefer  
to be ALWAYS chosen on Mondays :-;

Cheers,
Sigrid



Am 12.09.2009 um 21:37 schrieb Thomas Holubar:

> Hi Sigrid!
>
>> thanks a lot, this helped me very much (both in understanding and in
>> giving me the confidence to defend my code)!
>
> I'm sure you'll have plenty nice - and entertaining - discussions! ;-)
>
> So FWIW:
> Your colleague likely complains that the schedule your program  
> generates is not *fair*. You in turn claim it to be *random*. And  
> since both of you are probably right there's little chance you'll  
> eventually come to a satisfactory conclusion.
>
> Taking for granted that my understanding of fairness is compatible  
> with yours (and your colleague's) then fairness and randomness are  
> incompatible.
>
> YC explained this in more detail already.
>
> So, if you want happy colleagues make it fair, not random.
>
> Cheers,
> Thomas