[Python-ideas] Haskell envy

[Terry Reedy]

On 4/23/2012 1:24 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> Nestor wrote:
>> The other day a colleague of mine submitted this challenge taken from
>> some website to us coworkers:
>>
>> Have the function ArrayAddition(arr) take the array of numbers stored
>> in arr and print true if any combination of numbers in the array can
>> be added up to equal the largest number in the array, otherwise print
>> false. For example: if arr contains [4, 6, 23, 10, 1, 3] the output
>> should print true because 4 + 6 + 10 + 3 = 23. The array will not be
>> empty, will not contain all the same elements, and may contain
>> negative numbers.
>
> By the way, your solution is wrong. Consider this sample data:
>
> -2, -5, 0, -1, -3
>
> In this case, the Haskell solution should correctly print true, while
> yours will print false, because you skip the empty subset. The empty sum
> equals the maximum value of the set, 0.
>
> The ease at which people can get this wrong is an argument in favour of
> a standard solution.

I call it an argument for writing tests first, starting with the most 
simple and trivial case(s).

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy