Round Robins

We have often heard, no doubt, the term ‘Round Robin’. Perhaps it is a chubby little bird with a red breast that has partaken too freely of the Christmas repast.

This was the literal sense, of course, as envisaged when still young.

For many years I regarded a ‘Round Robin’ as a series of games in which the competitors all played against each other at some point rather like the Barclay’s Premier League. Then using a points system, a winner could be established with sub-rules to determine who the winner might be in the event of a tie on points.

One is aware that this league system occurs in other countries with, for example, American Football, Baseball, and another game employing a small, round net at either end of the pitch—or court, or whatever it might be.

Indeed, this type of ‘Round Robin’ system for a sport is quite often referred to as an ‘American Tournament’ in UK. Other nations have different terms for it. ‘Girone all’Italiana’—the “Italian Style Circuit”, is how it is referred to in Italy.  In Serbia they have promoted one of their famous chess players to the role of ‘Round Robin’ naming by referring to such a tournament as Бергеров систем (Bergerov system) after Johann Berger.

Some Chess Tournaments have a ‘Round Robin’ style system that is doubled so that each player plays against all the other players twice—once as ‘white’ and once as ‘black’.

Not being a Chess player, although I am aware of the moves available, I do not know if it makes any difference to the result if you start out as ‘white’ or ‘black’.

As life progressed, creeping ever onwards into a state of senility and incontinence one suggests, I have discovered that there are other ‘Round Robins’.

A frightening one, for me, is in computing. It is a way of scheduling algorithms for a computer

For example, if the time slot is 100 milliseconds, and job1 takes a total time of 250 ms to complete, the round-robin scheduler will suspend the job after 100 ms and give other jobs their time on the CPU. Once the other jobs have had their equal share (100 ms each), job1 will get another allocation of CPU time and the cycle will repeat. This process continues until the job finishes and needs no more time on the CPU.

                                     Job1 = Total time to complete 250 ms (quantum        100 ms).

                                     First allocation = 100 ms.

                                     Second allocation = 100 ms.

                                     Third allocation = 100 ms but job1 self-terminates          after 50 ms.

                                     Total CPU time of job1 = 250 ms

Another approach is to divide all processes into an equal number of timing quanta such that the quantum size is proportional to the size of the process. Hence, all processes end at the same time.

Phew!

While we are with computers it is worth noting that there is a ‘Round Robin DNS’ (Domain Name System) used by servers that respond to address requests from client computers according to an appropriate statistical model.

In its simplest implementation Round-robin DNS works by responding to DNS requests not only with a single IP address but a list of IP addresses of several servers that host identical services. The order in which IP addresses from the list are returned is the basis for the term ‘round robin’. With each DNS response, the IP address sequence in the list is permuted (past tense of ‘permute’: submit to a process of alteration, rearrangement or permutation. Usually, basic IP clients attempt connections with the first address returned from a DNS query so that on different connection attempts clients would receive service from different providers, thus distributing the overall load among servers.

And.

RRDtool (abbreviation for round-robin database tool) aims to handle time series data like network bandwidth, temperatures, CPU load, etc. The data are stored in a round-robin database (circular buffer), thus the system storage footprint remains constant over time.

It also includes tools to extract RRD data in a graphical format, for which it was originally intended.

Bindings exist for Perl, Python, Ruby, Tcl, PHP and Lua. And there is an independent full Java implementation (rrd4j).

In betting, a ‘Round Robin’ bet is a wager on three selections and consisting of 10 separate bets: 3 doubles, 1 treble and 3 up-and-down (each way) bets (each of 2 separate bets).

It is used in laboratories, too. In experimental methodology, a round robin test is an interlaboratory test (measurement, analysis, or experiment) performed independently several times. This can involve multiple independent scientists performing the test with the use of the same method in different equipment, or a variety of methods and equipment. In reality it is often a combination of the two, for example if a sample is analysed, or one (or more) of its properties is measured by different laboratories using different methods, or even just by different units of equipment of identical construction.

It is entirely possible that the original ‘Round Robin’ was a document signed by multiple parties in a circle in order to hide the identity of the leader and to make it more difficult to determine the order in which it was signed, thus preventing a ringleader from being identified. Sometimes this may also refer to the document signed when a crew makes a pact to rise up against their captain.

Rather like the ‘Knights of the Round Table’ where they sat in a way that would not show anyone to have any particular seniority.

This term comes from the French ‘ruban rond’ (round ribbon). This described the practice of signatories to petitions against authority (usually Government officials petitioning the Crown) appending their names on a document in a non-hierarchical circle or ribbon pattern (and so disguising the order in which they have signed) so that none may be identified as a ringleader.

This practice was adopted by sailors petitioning officers in the Royal Navy (first recorded 1731).

Writers?

A round-robin story, or simply "round robin," is a type of collaborative fiction or storytelling in which a number of authors each write chapters of a novel or pieces of a story, in rounds. Round-robin novels were invented in the 19th century, and later became a tradition particularly in science fiction. In modern usage, the term often applies to collaborative fan fiction, particularly on the Internet, though it can also refer to friends or family telling stories at a sleepover or around a campfire, etc.

You thought life was simple? We have yet to discover if Batman’s colleague has been over-eating!