Talk:Berlekamp–Massey algorithm

update history
The link points to error 404. 217.98.142.167 00:14, 22 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I know. I've replaced it.  4pq1injbok 03:21, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Berlekamp Massey algorithm - needs a description
Currently the article only includes two example code fragments with no explanation of why or how the algorithm works. If I get time, I'll add a reasonable explantion to the article. Rcgldr (talk) 03:13, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Main article suggested change, Berlekamp Masey was not the key to practical applciation of Reed Solomon
The aricle includes this statement:

The algorithm became the key to practical application of the now ubiquitous Reed–Solomon code.

However, the key to practical application of Reed Solomon code was establishing a relationship between the coefficients of the error locator polynomial and the syndromes that result in a set of linear equations which can be solved through conventional methods, as described in Peterson_decoder. Berlekamp Massey and other methods like the Euclidean algorithm are just optimized methods used to solve the same set of linear equations.

I recommend simply deleting this statement, or just stating that Berlekamp Massey algorithm optimizes the process of solving the set of linear equations as decribed in Peterson_decoder.

Rcgldr (talk) 03:39, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Berlekamp–Massey algorithm. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20150607035849/http://planetmath.org/encyclopedia/BerlekampMasseyAlgorithm.html to http://planetmath.org/encyclopedia/BerlekampMasseyAlgorithm.html

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Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 11:51, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

someone had already changed the wayback link to a useful one. so even though the bot botched it, the link is good on the article page. John Comeau (talk) 04:51, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

code formatting
the indents show correctly in the editor, but not so in the actual page. I'll see if I can figure it out. John Comeau (talk) 06:42, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

it was because of a mix of hard tabs ('\t') and spaces. duh. John Comeau (talk) 06:50, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

looking over the whole article, it becomes clear that the origin of the problematic variable names were in the pseudocode preceding the Java source. the original Java code matched more closely the naming in the rest of the article. I'm going to edit the pseudocode, then change the Java source to match. then the whole article will use the same standard, hopefully making everything clearer. John Comeau (talk) 03:36, 6 September 2016 (UTC)


 * While I appreciate your efforts, I reverted them. The initial code changes replaced int arrays with a string type, added housekeeping functions that were not about the algorithm, and put in  as a test. The effort on WP is not about programming but rather algorithms.  I ultimately delete the Java code section because WP is not a code repository, and psuedocode algorithms are preferred over specific languages. Glrx (talk) 20:43, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

code bug
I believe that there's a bug in the pseudo-code, and the loop should start from n=L. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.226.10.63 (talk • contribs) 12:37, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I have working code that starts the loop with n = 0. Since L is initialized to 0, the loop could start with n = L, since L = 0, but that could be confusing. The "psuedocode" is supposed to be the one used in a book, but I don't have that book, so I can't confirm this. I recall early variations of the algorithm in other texts that were more complicated than needed, but the one shown in the Wiki article is essentially the same as the more recent variations. Rcgldr (talk) 17:24, 15 June 2019 (UTC)