channelcoding - In cyclic codes, a code vector can be obtained from another by simple circular shift. Why then the other method?

In cyclic codes, a code vector can be obtained from another by simple circular shift. Why then the other method is taught that is a bit round about? Take the code polynomial. Multiply it by the polynomial with power equal to the circular shift amount and then take the modulo of another polynomial and then convert this resulting polynomial to the codevector to find that the code vector obtained by circular shift and this polynomial method are the same. Apart from this interesting property is there any advantage of the polynomial method in implementation or in any other way?

Answer

While it's true that a circular shift of a codeword is another codeword, it's not true that you can generate all codewords by shifting one codeword. Consider the all-zeros or all-ones codewords; they can't be generated by shifting any of the other codewords.

For very large codes, it is important to have simple algorithms to generate a codeword based on the input. Even if the algorithm seems to operate on a "roundabout" way for small codes, try to implement your idea using a code with $(n,k)=(100,50)$, just to give one example. You'll find that the "roundabout" way is actually much easier to implement!