Talk:Totient function

From Rosetta Code

reinstatement of HTML comments from the Perl 6 entry

The Perl 6 entry has the comment:

    This is an incredibly inefficient way of finding prime numbers.


The original (two) HTML comments that I added were:

    The counting of primes  (or finding of primes)  was included in this task as a verification of 
    the  totient  function's ability to detect a prime,  not to provide a method to find a prime --- 
    it's an artifact of the function.  But, slow as it is, it's not as slow as the AKS test for 
    primes.   Perhaps this could be moved to the discussion page if the efficiency is talk-worthy 
    topic.    -- Gerard Schildberger. 


Another HTML comment that was deleted had to do with another statement:

    Also, the task requirements haven't shifted, they were clarified as at least one person failed 
    to understand the 3rd requirement (please view the original wording).  If you think this one 
    change constitutes an every-shifting change in the requirements, please feel free to revert the 
    change.  I implore you to try to not add snipes (to the history log that can't be deleted).  I 
    value your comments, but not so much when they're detrimental to the editing of a Rosetta Code 
    task preamble, and comments that aren't constructive.  This is, after all, a draft task.  Better 
    to change the wording now then later.  Adding clarification isn't shifting the requirements,  I 
    tried to make the sentence structure clearer to understand.  I felt that an edification for a 
    task's requirement was needed as it apparently didn't effectively convey what was needed to be 
    marked (as a prime).



I think putting these restored comments here where they belong will aid us to come to an understanding why the indicating and/or counting of primes using the totient function was used as a verification process,   and was not meant or implied to be used as a general way to find and/or count primes.     -- Gerard Schildberger (talk) 00:17, 12 February 2020 (UTC)