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

New
telemachus
Python Testing With Pytest - Chapter 2, warnings for “unregistered custom marks” While running the smoke tests in Chapter 2, I get these...
New
brianokken
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...
New
joepstender
The generated iex result below should list products instead of product for the metadata. (page 67) iex> product = %Product{} %Pento....
New
swlaschin
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...
New
hgkjshegfskef
The test is as follows: Scenario: Intersecting a scaled sphere with a ray Given r ← ray(point(0, 0, -5), vector(0, 0, 1)) And s ← sphere...
New
brunogirin
When trying to run tox in parallel as explained on page 151, I got the following error: tox: error: argument -p/–parallel: expected one...
New
hazardco
On page 78 the following code appears: <%= link_to ‘Destroy’, product, class: ‘hover:underline’, method: :delete, data: { confirm...
New
andreheijstek
After running /bin/setup, the first error was: The foreman' command exists in these Ruby versions: That was easy to fix: gem install fore...
New
dachristenson
I just bought this book to learn about Android development, and I’m already running into a major issue in Ch. 1, p. 20: “Update activity...
New

Other popular topics Top

AstonJ
If it’s a mechanical keyboard, which switches do you have? Would you recommend it? Why? What will your next keyboard be? Pics always w...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Ruby, Io, Prolog, Scala, Erlang, Clojure, Haskell. With Seven Languages in Seven Weeks, by Bruce A. Tate, you’ll go beyond the syntax—and...
New
DevotionGeo
I know that -t flag is used along with -i flag for getting an interactive shell. But I cannot digest what the man page for docker run com...
New
New
AstonJ
You might be thinking we should just ask who’s not using VSCode :joy: however there are some new additions in the space that might give V...
New
AstonJ
This looks like a stunning keycap set :orange_heart: A LEGENDARY KEYBOARD LIVES ON When you bought an Apple Macintosh computer in the e...
New
mafinar
This is going to be a long an frequently posted thread. While talking to a friend of mine who has taken data structure and algorithm cou...
New
husaindevelop
Inside our android webview app, we are trying to paste the copied content from another app eg (notes) using navigator.clipboard.readtext ...
New
AstonJ
This is cool! DEEPSEEK-V3 ON M4 MAC: BLAZING FAST INFERENCE ON APPLE SILICON We just witnessed something incredible: the largest open-s...
New
AstonJ
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...
New

Sub Categories: