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Using a tree structure is an overcomplicated method, at least now by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/19/2012, 10:22am PDT
Entropy Stew wrote:

TDARCOS: Read this. Understand this.
-/ES/-

The mark of a good programmer is to know what the application is doing and when it's necessary to optimize. And when some optimizations are really unnecessary and perhaps increase the complexity of the application. I prefer simple over complex, when possible. I love simple algorithms when they do the job, and I dislike complex because it's too easy six months after you wrote it to try to come back and make a change, then try to remember "now how the #@$% does this piece of &*!& work?"

I was reading a game once, and it had the most beautiful means to do a task switch between the two players. It used an array to hold all the information for each of the players, one was number 1, and the other player was 2. The particular player whose turn it was, was stored in the variable P. So the entire switch between which player is up consists of the following:

P = 3 - P

If P, the current player number is 1, it's now 2. If it was 2, it's now 1. Extremely simple and very elegant solution.

A tree structure is a good idea when working with slow machines and helps overcome the speed problems we had on (what are now older and less capable) systems in the past. It's way too complicated now in view of the raw speed of most current machines. When you're programming a text-heavy 16-bit application on a PDP-11 minicomputer from the 1970s & 1980s or on an 8086 which lacks string processing instructions, string searches and comparisons are expensive in terms of processor time and tree structures are a good compromise. When writing a program for a IA32 or 64-bit processor that includes good string search routines as part of the instruction set, string comparisons are much cheaper and a tree structure is no longer as necessary unless you have huge data structures.

I'm writing a program that will collect identifiers in order to show where they are used in the source program it scans. For a typical program today, say a 20,000 line app that has perhaps 8-10 files, uses maybe 500 identifiers - an identifier being a variable, a function, a procedure, a record, etc. - and has perhaps 15,000 uses of these 500 identifiers might take two seconds to generate.

If I was targeting old machines or program systems of more than a million lines I might be more concerned. Besides, I do have at least one "stealth" feature I am using to improve performance, which I got the idea from a really good cross-reference program (but not good enough for today's Object Pascal programming language) someone else wrote back around 1980. The list of identifiers in my program is not one huge list, but an array of linked lists of the first character of the identifier. This breaks the identifier list into roughly 27 lists, each for the 26 letters and the underscore, the valid characters that an identifier can start with. If speed did become a problem, I could create an array of 27*38 lists, and capture the first two characters of an identifier (first char: a-z and _; second char: a-z, _, 0-9, and nul (nul is for 1 character identifiers, like I, C, or K).
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Jesus Fucking Christ. People. by Oom Shnibble 04/17/2012, 11:10pm PDT NEW
    Context? by Entropy Stew 04/18/2012, 12:57am PDT NEW
        Re: Context? by Oom Shnibble 04/18/2012, 1:43am PDT NEW
    I have some news for you, Om by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/18/2012, 1:07am PDT NEW
        Um by Fullofkitttens 04/18/2012, 5:14am PDT NEW
            This is correct. You're a much better programmer than TDARCOS by Entropy Stew 04/18/2012, 8:26am PDT NEW
                Oh, and storage space is also increased by Entropy Stew 04/18/2012, 8:36am PDT NEW
                    Using a tree structure is an overcomplicated method, at least now by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/19/2012, 10:22am PDT NEW
                        You're a disaster by Entropy Stew 04/19/2012, 1:06pm PDT NEW
                            I forgot to mention your insane touting of this as a better approach vs trees NT by Entropy Stew 04/19/2012, 1:35pm PDT NEW
                            Actually, I know what I'm doing. Do you what you are doing? by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/19/2012, 7:43pm PDT NEW
                                Your data structure is analogous to a hash table with 27 buckets by Entropy Stew 04/20/2012, 1:02am PDT NEW
                                    Re: Your data structure is analogous to a hash table with 27 buckets by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/20/2012, 5:43pm PDT NEW
                                        Get dunked, son by Entropy Stew 04/20/2012, 9:26pm PDT NEW
                                            Re: Get dunked, son by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/21/2012, 2:28am PDT NEW
                                                Oh Jesus I get it now. by The Happiness Engine 04/21/2012, 9:02am PDT NEW
                                                    Oh, it's just a really shitty skip list, then NT by Entropy Stew 04/21/2012, 9:26am PDT NEW
                                                There's more than one way to implement a hash table by Entropy Stew 04/21/2012, 10:40am PDT NEW
                                    His data structure is analogous to 27 buckets of shit. NT by Orange Devil Bat 05/12/2012, 9:13am PDT NEW
                        hey tansin by jeep 04/21/2012, 6:10pm PDT NEW
                            Re: hey tansin by Entropy Stew 04/22/2012, 6:07am PDT NEW
                                Re: hey tansin by jeep 04/22/2012, 8:10am PDT NEW
                                    you would not believe the fucking scrub phds I've been handed to work with by jeep 04/22/2012, 8:19am PDT NEW
                                        PhD is the rubber stamp indicating either greatness or utter uselessness by Entropy Stew 04/22/2012, 10:18am PDT NEW
                                            I've learned to avoid the master's ones altogether by jeep 04/22/2012, 6:36pm PDT NEW
                            Re: hey tansin by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/24/2012, 1:53am PDT NEW
                                Re: hey tansin by jeep 04/24/2012, 5:57am PDT NEW
            What is Pascal and why it is used by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/19/2012, 9:31am PDT NEW
                Pascal is a terrible tinkertoy dead programming language. NT by Too boring, didn't read 04/19/2012, 4:26pm PDT NEW
                Pascal/Delphi by Oom Shnibble 04/19/2012, 11:34pm PDT NEW
                    Also (Mini-rant) by Oom Shnibble 04/19/2012, 11:44pm PDT NEW
                        Re: Also (Mini-rant) by Dangerous Dave 04/20/2012, 7:20am PDT NEW
                            The schools around here (Big Ten) start with Python then go to C++. by Fullofkitttens 04/20/2012, 7:39am PDT NEW
                            Re: Also (Mini-rant) by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/20/2012, 6:22pm PDT NEW
                                Re: Also (Mini-rant) by Dangerous Dave 04/20/2012, 9:37pm PDT NEW
                                Re: Also (Mini-rant) by Entropy Stew 04/20/2012, 10:40pm PDT NEW
                        Re: Also (Mini-rant) by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/20/2012, 5:54pm PDT NEW
                            Re: Also (Mini-rant) by Entropy Stew 04/20/2012, 9:44pm PDT NEW
                                Re: Also (Mini-rant) by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/21/2012, 4:24pm PDT NEW
                                    Corection, I mean "one block of 511K free" in above article NT by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/21/2012, 4:24pm PDT NEW
                                    That's just a smart allocator. Even C has them by Entropy Stew 04/22/2012, 5:32am PDT NEW
                                        It's still automatic garbage collection by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/24/2012, 2:00am PDT NEW
                                            No it isn't, you ignorant motherfucker. How can you be wrong so often? by Entropy Stew 04/24/2012, 3:46am PDT NEW
                                                So you really think insulting someone is going to get them to listen to you? NT by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/27/2012, 5:37pm PDT NEW
                                                    Pretty sure he's serious about the ignorant part, maybe even the mother fucker! NT by Worm 04/27/2012, 6:04pm PDT NEW
                                                        I never fucked my mother. She charged too much. NT by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 05/10/2012, 6:07pm PDT NEW
                                                    OH GOD HIS FEELINGS NT by Entropy Stew 04/27/2012, 6:36pm PDT NEW
                                                SPOILERS: He so fucked up the cheeseburger. It's amazing, you should check it ou NT by The Happiness Engine 04/27/2012, 8:53pm PDT NEW
                    Re: Pascal/Delphi by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/20/2012, 5:34pm PDT NEW
        What the fuck does this have to do with pointers? NT by Entropy Stew 04/18/2012, 8:44am PDT NEW
            Re: What the fuck does this have to do with pointers? by Ice Cream Jonsey 04/18/2012, 9:07am PDT NEW
                Exactly right, Jonsey, you nailed it! by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/19/2012, 10:32am PDT NEW
                    I got yer back, Commander. NT by Ice Cream Jonsey 04/19/2012, 11:55am PDT NEW
                Counterpoint by Ray of Light 05/06/2012, 1:49pm PDT NEW
                    HAHAHAHAH by Entropy Stew 05/06/2012, 5:35pm PDT NEW
                        Re: HAHAHAHAH by jeep 05/10/2012, 6:41pm PDT NEW
                            also I hope you mean I don't sound like I went to school for cs by jeep 05/10/2012, 6:42pm PDT NEW
                                Neither did I NT by Entropy Stew 05/10/2012, 8:16pm PDT NEW
                                    Your degree is in scare quotes! NT by We Miss QB 05/10/2012, 8:33pm PDT NEW
                                    I did! NT by Scot Thompson, ex-Yahoo CEO 05/14/2012, 2:38am PDT NEW
                    Oh please, this has nothing to do with application development by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 05/10/2012, 6:44pm PDT NEW
                        Well I definitely feel safe now *hands over millions of credit card numbers* by Entropy Stew 05/10/2012, 9:36pm PDT NEW
                            Re: Well I definitely feel safe now *hands over millions of credit card numbers* by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 05/12/2012, 8:43am PDT NEW
                                You know less about security than you do data structures NT by Entropy Stew 05/12/2012, 4:11pm PDT NEW
                        Hi, my name is Ray by Ray of Light 05/14/2012, 1:49am PDT NEW
                            Re: Hi, my name is Ray by jeep 05/14/2012, 1:28pm PDT NEW
                            TDARCOS: wrong enough to summon Ray back from 2fort by Entropy Stew 05/14/2012, 6:19pm PDT NEW
                                Accessing one item at a time by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 05/16/2012, 3:28am PDT NEW
                                    Context: it matters NT by Entropy Stew 05/16/2012, 4:04pm PDT NEW
    Part Two of this. by Oom Shnibble 05/25/2012, 9:19am PDT NEW
        Re: Part Two of this. by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 05/27/2012, 9:51am PDT NEW
            What? Isn't the issue that you can't cast to an unrelated class? NT by Entropy Stew 05/27/2012, 1:34pm PDT NEW
                yes by Rafiki 05/27/2012, 1:58pm PDT NEW
                    I don't get how TDARCOS understood it was casting, then failed to understand the NT by Entropy Stew 05/27/2012, 2:05pm PDT NEW
                        I think I did get most of it by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 05/28/2012, 10:57pm PDT NEW
                            He is close enough for government work -nt- NT by Oom Shnibble 05/29/2012, 11:56am PDT NEW
    The Future of Perl NT by Kerr 02/21/2025, 2:37pm PST NEW
 
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