Balanced trees

[Antoon Pardon]

Op 11-03-14 00:24, Roy Smith schreef:

> In article <8761nmrnfk.fsf at elektro.pacujo.net>,
>  Marko Rauhamaa <marko at pacujo.net> wrote:
>
>> Anyway, this whole debate is rather unnecessary since every developer is
>> supposed to have both weapons in their arsenal.
> The problem with having a choice is that it opens up the possibility of 
> making the wrong one :-)

This is just a standard defense for the status quo. Introducing the decimal
module also added a choice.

> As this discussion has shown, figuring out whether a hash table or a 
> tree is better for a given problem is non-trivial.  My guess is that if 
> you gave 1000 typical developers both data structures and let them pick 
> freely, the number of cases where it really mattered and the developer 
> picked the right one would be approximately equal to the number of cases 
> where they picked the wrong one.

You are only illustrating one part. How about all those cases now where the
wrong choice is more or less forced on the developer for lack of the alternative?

-- 
Antoon Pardon