Did I miss something in Lecture #4? When Prof. Guttag ran his square root program for 0.5, he should have changed the while loop, right? It says while abs(ans**2-x) =epsilon and ans x, right? .75 is not within epsilon of the correct answer, it was just the first guess the program made and since it was higher than .5 the loop stopped. This is a mistake right?

Question

Did I miss something in Lecture #4? When Prof. Guttag ran his square root program for 0.5, he should have changed the while loop, right? It says while abs(ans**2-x) >=epsilon and ans <=x - once he made the change to account for numbers less than 1, every guess is going to be >x, right? .75 is not within epsilon of the correct answer, it was just the first guess the program made and since it was higher than .5 the loop stopped. This is a mistake right?

e.mccormick · Answer

If you make the program properly, what you need to change is the number being tested and epsilon.  Nothing else.  However, he does at times show flawed code intentionally.  He ususally talks about it when it is flawed.