Re: Median: Oasis and Fast Sorting Algorithm

[John Machin <sjmachin lexicon net>]

On 10/02/2007 10:10 AM, Leonard Mada wrote:
> Well, the OASIS formula has a big problem with situations like the 
> following:
> data set is: 1,1,1. So the list contains 4 values of 1.

Looks like 3 to me, not 4. One of us has a big problem with the counting 
 algorithm :-)

> So, the median 
> is the middle value, BUT there is really just one value repeated 3 times.

So who cares? The median value is 1. Is your alternative going to return 
some value other than 1 ????

> Or consider the following list: 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4. So the calculation of 
> the median does take just 2 of the 3 values of 2, which is a little bit 
> ambiguous.

(2+2)/2 == 2. (2+2+2)/3 == 2. I see no ambiguity here.

> Which one is the middle value? Are 2 two's more middle than 
> the 3rd two?

Again, who cares *which* two? Is your alternative going to return some 
value other than 2 ????