Algorithms

marcsleigh

Should we open an Algorithms Forum here?
Who don't know at least basic algorithms don't talk about programming!

Sorry for talking damn, slap me if you want :v:

jmcc

marcsleigh wrote:

Should we open an Algorithms Forum here?

No. Most algorithms used in day to day programming are pretty elementary. Having a separate forum purely for algorithms would only serve to divide the attention of forum readers. Most of the questions about algorithms tend to be about the right algorithm to use in an application rather than about algorithms per se.

Regards...jmcc

marcsleigh

Yup, the algorithms theirselves are basic like sweets, but what i meant was about problem solving which could be like chewing gum, the more you chew the less sweet it is. You may try to solve some IOI problems and see how?

To me, languages like C, basic, pascal, C#, asp, php or whater are just the technologies, no need to ask any questions about them, just read the technical documents you'd have it all.

Here is IOI 2005: http://olympiads.win.tue.nl/ioi/ioi2005/contest/ioi2005-tasks-and-solutions-a5.pdf

Hobbes

You could try the maths forum.

dancin

You're talking about patterns. There are a bunch of well known patterns out there : check out http://hillside.net/patterns/

The problem I usually have with this is expressing the details of the particular pattern in a given language. Google and Boards are your friend's then.

frost

I would say that those who are aware of algorithms (and would therefore be most likely read a separate alg. forum) are those who need to read about them the least!

I've run across lots of developers who didn't even have an awareness that different approaches to solving a problem would give significantly different performance. A lot of these folks would have excellent knowledge of whatever programming language they were using, but just didn't ever get taught any theoretical computer science.

Some of the blame for that rests with books and programming courses where they just teach the details of a given technology or programming language. You'd be surprised how many people were first taught sorting using Bubble Sort as an example!

My memory of patterns is that they are at a higher level than algorithms, and that they describe the components of a system and their high level interaction, but don't go into the logic detail that an algorithm would. You might say that a pattern is analogous to a set of class diagrams, that, when implemented, could solve a problem, while an algorithm is specific instructions on which logic the implemented classes would use internally and in interacting with each other.

Or not. Haven't consciously used patterns recently.