35s program checksums

[MarkHaysHarris777]

(01-27-2015 11:17 AM)Paul Dale Wrote:  That the checksums do, in fact, have a meaning that is somewhat too convoluted for normal users isn't useful or helpful. None of the gymnastics you've gone through to attempt show they are useful is necessary on other checksummed calculators.

The checksums really only have one useful purpose: to alert the operator (me) that one of my programs has changed (probably by me) because of a recalculation of a GTO or XEQ target because of a called routine renumbering (because of my own editing!). That's it. Here is the rub... if you tell people that the checksum is meaningless they will ignore a 'critical' warning which may lead (probably will lead) to an infinite loop (tight or no) and a lockup. Again, if one of your checksums changes, something is wrong! (and its working as designed).

Now, having said that, the thing people try to use checksums for doesn't really work in practice often, because the author didn't keep up with the published checksum because she thought that the checksums were bogus. Even some of the examples for proof cases of bugs were in this category... when you get down to it you find that the program 'really did' change, or the checksum was just out of date.

But here is another thing... didn't HP users 'like forever' have programming 'without' *any* checksums?

... have to admit it... I'm really wanting to play with the WP34s... I'm closer!

Cheers,