pjd

pjd

A Common-Sense Guide to Data Structures and Algorithms, Second Edition: suggestion for sum_swap example (page 413)

Maybe you were just trying to keep the sum_swap code clean and streamlined for ease of reading, but this method didn’t seem as air-tight as other example methods in the book. You may want to at least comment that not all cases are handled by the method.

Two ways I think this method might fail are 1) the method does not handle the case where swapping to even out the sums is not possible, and 2) since shift_amount is calculated with integer division and thus will always be an integer, I suspect that sum_swap could give an incorrect answer if sum_1 - sum_2 is an odd number.

Then again, maybe those types of caveats are understood and maybe I missed other such scenarios elsewhere in the book.

I’m getting close to the end…finally! Great book, very well-written and helpful for me!

Most Liked

jaywengrow

jaywengrow

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

Thank you! Currently, the method does handle cases where swapping the sums isn’t possible, as it returns nil at the end. However, you are correct about the odd number issue. I will handle this in a future version. Good catch!

Where Next?

Popular Pragmatic Bookshelf topics Top

ianwillie
Hello Brian, I have some problems with running the code in your book. I like the style of the book very much and I have learnt a lot as...
New
mikecargal
Title: Hands-On Rust (Chap 8 (Adding a Heads Up Display) It looks like ​.with_simple_console_no_bg​(SCREEN_WIDTH*2, SCREEN_HEIGHT*2...
New
edruder
I thought that there might be interest in using the book with Rails 6.1 and Ruby 2.7.2. I’ll note what I needed to do differently here. ...
New
Mmm
Hi, build fails on: bracket-lib = “~0.8.1” when running on Mac Mini M1 Rust version 1.5.0: Compiling winit v0.22.2 error[E0308]: mi...
New
herminiotorres
Hi! I know not the intentions behind this narrative when called, on page XI: mount() |> handle_event() |> render() but the correc...
New
rmurray10127
Title: Intuitive Python: docker run… denied error (page 2) Attempted to run the docker command in both CLI and Powershell PS C:\Users\r...
New
Chrichton
Dear Sophie. I tried to do the “Authorization” exercise and have two questions: When trying to plug in an email-service, I found the ...
New
a.zampa
@mfazio23 I’m following the indications of the book and arriver ad chapter 10, but the app cannot be compiled due to an error in the Bas...
New
mcpierce
@mfazio23 I’ve applied the changes from Chapter 5 of the book and everything builds correctly and runs. But, when I try to start a game,...
New
New

Other popular topics Top

PragmaticBookshelf
Learn from the award-winning programming series that inspired the Elixir language, and go on a step-by-step journey through the most impo...
New
AstonJ
There’s a whole world of custom keycaps out there that I didn’t know existed! Check out all of our Keycaps threads here: https://forum....
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Tailwind CSS is an exciting new CSS framework that allows you to design your site by composing simple utility classes to create complex e...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Build highly interactive applications without ever leaving Elixir, the way the experts do. Let LiveView take care of performance, scalabi...
New
Maartz
Hi folks, I don’t know if I saw this here but, here’s a new programming language, called Roc Reminds me a bit of Elm and thus Haskell. ...
New
Help
I am trying to crate a game for the Nintendo switch, I wanted to use Java as I am comfortable with that programming language. Can you use...
New
DevotionGeo
I have always used antique keyboards like Cherry MX 1800 or Cherry MX 8100 and almost always have modified the switches in some way, like...
New
New
First poster: AstonJ
Jan | Rethink the Computer. Jan turns your computer into an AI machine by running LLMs locally on your computer. It’s a privacy-focus, l...
New
sir.laksmana_wenk
I’m able to do the “artistic” part of game-development; character designing/modeling, music, environment modeling, etc. However, I don’t...
New

Sub Categories: