PragProg Customers

A Common-Sense Guide to Data Structures and Algorithms, Second Edition: number_of_paths implementations are not equivalent (pg. 176/177)

iwc

iwc

A Common-Sense Guide to Data Structures and Algorithms, Second Edition: number_of_paths implementations are not equivalent (pg. 176/177)

There are two provided implementations for the number_of_paths function. The ‘hardcoded’ version is correct, but the simplified version is not.

pg. 176

def number_of_paths(n):
  return 0 if n <= 0
  return 1 if n == 1
  return 2 if n == 2
  return 4 if n == 3
  return number_of_paths(n - 1) + number_of_paths(n - 2) + number_of_paths(n - 3)
end

pg. 177

def number_of_paths(n):
  return 0 if n < 0
  return 1 if n == 1 || n == 0
  return number_of_paths(n - 1) + number_of_paths(n - 2) + number_of_paths(n - 3)
end

Page 177’s implementation returns 1 instead of 0 for number_of_paths(0).

1 comment
#errata/book-a-common-sense-guide-to-data-structures-and-algorithms-second-edition
0 823 1

First Post!

jaywengrow

jaywengrow

Author of A Common-Sense Guide to Data Structures and Algorithms

Thanks for submitting this. While you are correct that the two methods are not identical in this regard, that is by design. I explain there in the text between the two versions that in the simplified version, we are “rigging” the base case of 0 to return 1 for the very sake of simplifying the code. I hope that helps!

Post #2

Where Next?

View thread on forum
View A Common Sense Guide To Data Structures And Algorithms Second Edition's book portal
Post errata for this book
Post a suggestion for this book
Post a question about this book
Post a review about this book
Home PragProg Customers
#errata/book-a-common-sense-guide-to-data-structures-and-algorithms-second-edition
0 823 1
Last post

Popular Pragmatic Bookshelf topics Top

brianokken
PragProg Customers

Python Testing with pytest: pytest now requires markers to be declared (downloadable code)
Many tasks_proj/tests directories exist in chapters 2, 3, 5 that have tests that use the custom markers smoke and get, which are not decl...
#errata/book-python-testing-with-pytest
2 1383 2
New
swlaschin
PragProg Customers

Domain Modeling Made Functional: Missing diagram on page 18
The book has the same “Problem space/Solution space” diagram on page 18 as is on page 17. The correct Problem/Solution space diagrams ar...
#errata/book-domain-modeling-made-functional
1 1078 1
New
jskubick
PragProg Customers

Kotlin and Android Development featuring Jetpack: Error in generated Game.java (page 136)
I’m under the impression that when the reader gets to page 136 (“View Data with the Database Inspector”), the code SHOULD be able to buil...
#question/book-kotlin-and-android-development-featuring-jetpack
2 1172 8
New
brunogirin
PragProg Customers

Python Testing with pytest, Second Edition: unrecognized arguments error (page 122)
When I run the coverage example to report on missing lines, I get: pytest --cov=cards --report=term-missing ch7 ERROR: usage: pytest [op...
#errata/book-python-testing-with-pytest-second-edition
0 4000 1
New
brunogirin
PragProg Customers

Python Testing with pytest, Second Edition: InterpreterNotFound error when running tox (page 150)
When running tox for the first time, I got the following error: ERROR: InterpreterNotFound: python3.10 I realised that I was running ...
#errata/book-python-testing-with-pytest-second-edition
0 1306 1
New
dsmith42
PragProg Customers

iOS Unit Testing by Example: 54 Don't seem to be getting the print out on tests (Xcode 13.2)
Hey there, I’m enjoying this book and have learned a few things alredayd. However, in Chapter 4 I believe we are meant to see the “&gt;...
#question/book-ios-unit-testing-by-example
0 1963 3
New
jonmac
PragProg Customers

Kotlin and Android Development featuring Jetpack: allprojects should be moved to settings.gradle (page 245)
The allprojects block listed on page 245 produces the following error when syncing gradle: “org.gradle.api.GradleScriptException: A prob...
#suggestion/book-kotlin-and-android-development-featuring-jetpack
1 2304 1
New
Henrai
PragProg Customers

The Ray Tracer Challenge: Cannot get rid of acne When implement Shadows in Chapter 8.
Hi, I’m working on the Chapter 8 of the book. After I add add the point_offset, I’m still able to see acne: In the image above, I re...
#question/book-the-ray-tracer-challenge
1 1052 4
New
andreheijstek
PragProg Customers

Modern front-end development for Rails, second edition - Struggling to get the first chapter to work
After running /bin/setup, the first error was: The foreman' command exists in these Ruby versions: That was easy to fix: gem install fore...
#errata/book-modern-front-end-development-for-rails
1 1116 3
New
bjnord
PragProg Customers

Hands-on Rust: Chapter 3: Can't get first hello to run
Hello @herbert ! Trying to get the very first “Hello, Bracket Terminal!" example to run (p. 53). I develop on an Amazon EC2 instance runn...
#question/book-hands-on-rust
0 1147 2
New

Other popular topics Top

PragmaticBookshelf
Backend>Learning Resources

Web Development with Clojure, Third Edition
Stop developing web apps with yesterday’s tools. Today, developers are increasingly adopting Clojure as a web-development platform. See f...
pragprog.com
#pragprog#web-development/clojure#published-book/book-web-development-with-clojure-third-edition
5 4584 1
New
Exadra37
Linux>Questions

AMD or Intel for Programming with Linux as the OS?
I am thinking in building or buy a desktop computer for programing, both professionally and on my free time, and my choice of OS is Linux...
#mobile#android#web-development#linux#desktop-computer#mobile-development
36 6006 10
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Game Dev>Learning Resources

Apple Game Frameworks and Technologies
Design and develop sophisticated 2D games that are as much fun to make as they are to play. From particle effects and pathfinding to soci...
pragprog.com
#pragprog#ios#game-dev#macos/swift#published-book#apple/book-apple-game-frameworks-and-technologies
30 7995 10
New
AstonJ
General Dev>Hardware

Poll: Which keyboard layout do you use?
poll poll Be sure to check out @Dusty’s article posted here: An Introduction to Alternative Keyboard Layouts It’s one of the best write-...
colemakmods.github.io
#polls/keyboards
10 6048 11
New
AstonJ
General Dev>Dev Chat

Languages Without Garbage Collection
Continuing the discussion from Thinking about learning Crystal, let’s discuss - I was wondering which languages don’t GC - maybe we can c...
#garbage-collection
21 5575 7
New
First poster: CommunityNews
AI>In The News

How to fix the eyes in AI-generated images
aidemos.info
0 4508 0
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Backend>Learning Resources

Engineering Elixir Applications
Develop, deploy, and debug BEAM applications using BEAMOps: a new paradigm that focuses on scalability, fault tolerance, and owning each ...
pragprog.com
#pragprog/elixir#published-book/book-engineering-elixir-applications
40 7136 21
New
AstonJ
AI>Chat

How to: Run DeepSeek on Mac, Windows, and Linux!
This is a very quick guide, you just need to: Download LM Studio: https://lmstudio.ai/ Click on search Type DeepSeek, then select the o...
#macs/deepseek#guides#lm-studio
14 9328 10
New
Fl4m3Ph03n1x
AI>Questions

What are the best text-to-speech ai generation tools that you can run locally?
Background Lately I am in a quest to find a good quality TTS ai generation tool to run locally in order to create audio for some videos I...
#ai#text-to-speech
6 12337 3
New
mindriot
General Dev>Reviews

Keyboard Review: UHK60V2 vs Defy vs Voyager vs Glove80 vs Svalboard
Ok, well here are some thoughts and opinions on some of the ergonomic keyboards I have, I guess like mini review of each that I use enoug...
/keyboards#uhk60v2#defy#voyager#glove80#svalboard
5 5681 7
New
Back to top

Latest in A Common-Sense Guide to Data Structures and Algorithms, Second Edition

A Common-Sense Guide to Data Structures and Algorithms, Second Edition Portal ❯

PragProg Customers

Pragmatic Bookshelf PragProg Customers ❯

Latest on Devtalk

Devtalk ❯

We ❤️ helpful members!

We reward our most helpful members via our MOTM scheme - by giving away a whopping 25 books per year!

Member of the Month

Devtalk Sponsors

Pragmatic Bookshelf

Practical resources that improve the lives of professional developers.

Erlang Solutions

We build trusted fault-tolerant systems that scale to billions of users.

Honeybadger

Real-time error tracking, performance insights, and observability for devs.

EEF

Supporting innovation across the BEAM ecosystem.

coders51

We build reliable cloud platforms for business-critical systems.

Manning Publications

Develop your skills with books, videos, and courses.

AppSignal

Catch errors, track performance, monitor hosts and more.

WyeWorks

Enabling companies to succeed by building software people love.

Pragmatic Studio

Courses that move you from confusion to "Aha, now I get it!"

Linux New Media

Publishing Linux Magazine, ADMIN, and MakerSpace for 25+ years.

View all our sponsors ❯

Categories:

Sub Categories:

Popular Portals

Devtalk Sponsors

Pragmatic Bookshelf

Practical resources that improve the lives of professional developers.

Erlang Solutions

We build trusted fault-tolerant systems that scale to billions of users.

Honeybadger

Real-time error tracking, performance insights, and observability for devs.

EEF

Supporting innovation across the BEAM ecosystem.

coders51

We build reliable cloud platforms for business-critical systems.

Manning Publications

Develop your skills with books, videos, and courses.

AppSignal

Catch errors, track performance, monitor hosts and more.

WyeWorks

Enabling companies to succeed by building software people love.

Pragmatic Studio

Courses that move you from confusion to "Aha, now I get it!"

Linux New Media

Publishing Linux Magazine, ADMIN, and MakerSpace for 25+ years.

View all our sponsors ❯

We're in Beta

About us Mission Statement See our Roadmap