It is hard to believe. These days there seem to be a lot of "programmers" who lack even a rudimentary math background.

.. that, in my early days, I had many 'discoveries', 'neat ideas', 'fantastic tricks etc. that I later discovered were either already invented or not neat or not fantastic.

My guess is that the author is a blatant novice that actually worked this out on his own and said to himself "WOW".

anyhow, I'll send the editor of EDN a link to this thread.

Erik