For the record, I've written an operating system (multi-tasking, multi-user, message passing) a window manager to go with it, a bunch of applications to go with the window manager and a whole pile of commercial software besides that.
And in spite of all that I think I can make the above statement in confidence, that algorithm has something very unique and it exhibits a level of thinking that goes beyond the ordinary world of programming.
> I'd say thinking up Boyer-Moore is nothing special. It's just a logical progression of ideas. If you think about the problem long enough, you would come up with the same solution, or maybe even a better one.
What's stopping you?
I'm sure we'd love to see the Palish algorithm that beats MB by a significant margin and that does not build upon it.
A complete side-note, but it's hard to figure out where else to put this.
HN should not allow you to delete a post once it has a child comment. I find that people sometimes delete entire stacks of comments that have children (as in this case) when they don't seem to like how the argument is going. (This is not super-common, but it happens often enough that I've noticed it.) It's enormously frustrating for readers - not to mention childish on the part of the deleters.
Now, as for the rest of you kids, get off my lawn.
It seems to be something that has been 'figured out' and is now spreading. I'll theorize that it has to do with people that are afraid of the down-mod mob to avoid their karma taking a hit after posting something silly or they're afraid of being found in a decade by a google search from some prospective employer.
I could restore the deleted bits (without naming the author) if that's desired?
There are people that are simply better at this stuff than I am, I'm not going to belittle my own work by paying homage to theirs. That does not mean that I can't improve relative to where I am today though, and I strive very hard to do so. Maybe one day I will be that good.
It's the difference between arrogance and objectivity.
I'm more than happy creating the stuff I do, every now and then I come up with something that is new (at least, new to me, see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1353259), but that does not mean that I'm going to see this as anything other than the stroke of genius that it was.
If it really was that easy we could all improve on every major algorithm out there just by staring at it long enough and that's exactly why BM is so neat, it wasn't just a simple incremental improvement on someone else's code.
So, I challenge you, come up with an improvement on the status quo prior to BM that does not use the principles as exposed in BM and that performs on par or better, and that are not part of the current literature.
I'll tip you $250 if you manage to do that, that should be easy money for you. And I'm good for the cash.
You will probably get a nice wikipedia entry to boot.
Why would being objective about someone elses achievements relative to your own discourage anybody? That's a motivation to try harder not to give up, after all, it shows you what is possible.
Just like hearing Jehudi Menuhin play should not cause you to burn your violin but to practice.
I'm not putting algorithms on a pedestal, I'm putting that particular example of all the algorithms available up as the one that I ran in to which taught me that I (still!) have a lot to learn.
jacquesm seems like an accomplished guy. I believe he created internet video feeds. I just bookmarked his HN comment feed along with tptacek because it's a great way to find the good technical threads on HN.
When jacquesm is in awe of some developer, I find it inspirational, to think: hey, he's a mortal, maybe I can be that good too one day.
Comments
For the record, I've written an operating system (multi-tasking, multi-user, message passing) a window manager to go with it, a bunch of applications to go with the window manager and a whole pile of commercial software besides that.
And in spite of all that I think I can make the above statement in confidence, that algorithm has something very unique and it exhibits a level of thinking that goes beyond the ordinary world of programming.
> I'd say thinking up Boyer-Moore is nothing special. It's just a logical progression of ideas. If you think about the problem long enough, you would come up with the same solution, or maybe even a better one.
What's stopping you?
I'm sure we'd love to see the Palish algorithm that beats MB by a significant margin and that does not build upon it.
A complete side-note, but it's hard to figure out where else to put this.
HN should not allow you to delete a post once it has a child comment. I find that people sometimes delete entire stacks of comments that have children (as in this case) when they don't seem to like how the argument is going. (This is not super-common, but it happens often enough that I've noticed it.) It's enormously frustrating for readers - not to mention childish on the part of the deleters.
Now, as for the rest of you kids, get off my lawn.
It happened again, above.
It seems to be something that has been 'figured out' and is now spreading. I'll theorize that it has to do with people that are afraid of the down-mod mob to avoid their karma taking a hit after posting something silly or they're afraid of being found in a decade by a google search from some prospective employer.
I could restore the deleted bits (without naming the author) if that's desired?
Maybe a retract button instead of delete would be a fair compromise? The comment still appears but the karma is frozen and cannot be downvoted further
Not a bad idea. Add an optional 'reason' field for the mea culpa as well.
pre-sets:
- put foot in mouth
- drunk in charge of keyboard
- 4 am
- the cat did it
- sincerely regret writing that
[deleted]
Whoever talked about losing hope?
There are people that are simply better at this stuff than I am, I'm not going to belittle my own work by paying homage to theirs. That does not mean that I can't improve relative to where I am today though, and I strive very hard to do so. Maybe one day I will be that good.
It's the difference between arrogance and objectivity.
I'm more than happy creating the stuff I do, every now and then I come up with something that is new (at least, new to me, see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1353259), but that does not mean that I'm going to see this as anything other than the stroke of genius that it was.
If it really was that easy we could all improve on every major algorithm out there just by staring at it long enough and that's exactly why BM is so neat, it wasn't just a simple incremental improvement on someone else's code.
So, I challenge you, come up with an improvement on the status quo prior to BM that does not use the principles as exposed in BM and that performs on par or better, and that are not part of the current literature.
I'll tip you $250 if you manage to do that, that should be easy money for you. And I'm good for the cash.
You will probably get a nice wikipedia entry to boot.
[deleted]
Why would being objective about someone elses achievements relative to your own discourage anybody? That's a motivation to try harder not to give up, after all, it shows you what is possible.
Just like hearing Jehudi Menuhin play should not cause you to burn your violin but to practice.
I'm not putting algorithms on a pedestal, I'm putting that particular example of all the algorithms available up as the one that I ran in to which taught me that I (still!) have a lot to learn.
jacquesm seems like an accomplished guy. I believe he created internet video feeds. I just bookmarked his HN comment feed along with tptacek because it's a great way to find the good technical threads on HN.
When jacquesm is in awe of some developer, I find it inspirational, to think: hey, he's a mortal, maybe I can be that good too one day.