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

jeffmcompsci
Title: Design and Build Great Web APIs - typo “https://company-atk.herokuapp.com/2258ie4t68jv” (page 19, third bullet in URL list) Typo:...
New
simonpeter
When I try the command to create a pair of migration files I get an error. user=> (create-migration "guestbook") Execution error (Ill...
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
raul
Page 28: It implements io.ReaderAt on the store type. Sorry if it’s a dumb question but was the io.ReaderAt supposed to be io.ReadAt? ...
New
AleksandrKudashkin
On the page xv there is an instruction to run bin/setup from the main folder. I downloaded the source code today (12/03/21) and can’t see...
New
adamwoolhether
Is there any place where we can discuss the solutions to some of the exercises? I can figure most of them out, but am having trouble with...
New
creminology
Skimming ahead, much of the following is explained in Chapter 3, but new readers (like me!) will hit a roadblock in Chapter 2 with their ...
New
jwandekoken
Book: Programming Phoenix LiveView, page 142 (157/378), file lib/pento_web/live/product_live/form_component.ex, in the function below: d...
New
roadbike
From page 13: On Python 3.7, you can install the libraries with pip by running these commands inside a Python venv using Visual Studio ...
New
dachristenson
I’ve got to the end of Ch. 11, and the app runs, with all tabs displaying what they should – at first. After switching around between St...
New

Other popular topics Top

Devtalk
Hello Devtalk World! Please let us know a little about who you are and where you’re from :nerd_face:
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Stop developing web apps with yesterday’s tools. Today, developers are increasingly adopting Clojure as a web-development platform. See f...
New
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
New
AstonJ
We’ve talked about his book briefly here but it is quickly becoming obsolete - so he’s decided to create a series of 7 podcasts, the firs...
New
AstonJ
If you want a quick and easy way to block any website on your Mac using Little Snitch simply… File > New Rule: And select Deny, O...
New
hilfordjames
There appears to have been an update that has changed the terminology for what has previously been known as the Taskbar Overflow - this h...
New
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
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: