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  • Ad distribution problem: an optimal solution?

    - by Mokuchan
    I'm asked to find a 2 approximate solution to this problem: You’re consulting for an e-commerce site that receives a large number of visitors each day. For each visitor i, where i € {1, 2 ..... n}, the site has assigned a value v[i], representing the expected revenue that can be obtained from this customer. Each visitor i is shown one of m possible ads A1, A2 ..... An as they enter the site. The site wants a selection of one ad for each customer so that each ad is seen, overall, by a set of customers of reasonably large total weight. Thus, given a selection of one ad for each customer, we will define the spread of this selection to be the minimum, over j = 1, 2 ..... m, of the total weight of all customers who were shown ad Aj. Example Suppose there are six customers with values 3, 4, 12, 2, 4, 6, and there are m = 3 ads. Then, in this instance, one could achieve a spread of 9 by showing ad A1 to customers 1, 2, 4, ad A2 to customer 3, and ad A3 to customers 5 and 6. The ultimate goal is to find a selection of an ad for each customer that maximizes the spread. Unfortunately, this optimization problem is NP-hard (you don’t have to prove this). So instead give a polynomial-time algorithm that approximates the maximum spread within a factor of 2. The solution I found is the following: Order visitors values in descending order Add the next visitor value (i.e. assign the visitor) to the Ad with the current lowest total value Repeat This solution actually seems to always find the optimal solution, or I simply can't find a counterexample. Can you find it? Is this a non-polinomial solution and I just can't see it?

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  • Do You Really Know Your Programming Languages?

    - by Kristopher Johnson
    I am often amazed at how little some of my colleagues know or care about their craft. Something that constantly frustrates me is that people don't want to learn any more than they need to about the programming languages they use every day. Many programmers seem content to learn some pidgin sub-dialect, and stick with that. If they see a keyword or construct that they aren't familiar with, they'll complain that the code is "tricky." What would you think of a civil engineer who shied away from calculus because it had "all those tricky math symbols?" I'm not suggesting that we all need to become "language lawyers." But if you make your living as a programmer, and claim to be a competent user of language X, then I think at a minimum you should know the following: Do you know the keywords of the language and what they do? What are the valid syntactic forms? How are memory, files, and other operating system resources managed? Where is the official language specification and library reference for the language? The last one is the one that really gets me. Many programmers seem to have no idea that there is a "specification" or "standard" for any particular language. I still talk to people who think that Microsoft invented C++, and that if a program doesn't compile under VC6, it's not a valid C++ program. Programmers these days have it easy when it comes to obtaining specs. Newer languages like C#, Java, Python, Ruby, etc. all have their documentation available for free from the vendors' web sites. Older languages and platforms often have standards controlled by standards bodies that demand payment for specs, but even that shouldn't be a deterrent: the C++ standard is available from ISO for $30 (and why am I the only person I know who has a copy?). Programming is hard enough even when you do know the language. If you don't, I don't see how you have a chance. What do the rest of you think? Am I right, or should we all be content with the typical level of programming language expertise? Update: Several great comments here. Thanks. A couple of people hit on something that I didn't think about: What really irks me is not the lack of knowledge, but the lack of curiosity and willingness to learn. It seems some people don't have any time to hone their craft, but they have plenty of time to write lots of bad code. And I don't expect people to be able to recite a list of keywords or EBNF expressions, but I do expect that when they see some code, they should have some inkling of what it does. Few people have complete knowledge of every dark corner of their language or platform, but everyone should at least know enough that when they see something unfamiliar, they will know how to get whatever additional information they need to understand it.

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  • Reverse engineering a bezier curve

    - by Martin
    Given a few sample points on a bézier curve, is it possible to work out the set of possible parameters of the curve? In my specific application there is a limited set of endpoints the curve may have, so I want to generate the set of possible curves, enumerate all of them and pick out all the ones which may end on a valid end point.

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  • Why are compilers so stupid?

    - by martinus
    I always wonder why compilers can't figure out simple things that are obvious to the human eye. They do lots of simple optimizations, but never something even a little bit complex. For example, this code takes about 6 seconds on my computer to print the value zero (using java 1.6): int x = 0; for (int i = 0; i < 100 * 1000 * 1000 * 1000; ++i) { x += x + x + x + x + x; } System.out.println(x); It is totally obvious that x is never changed so no matter how often you add 0 to itself it stays zero. So the compiler could in theory replace this with System.out.println(0). Or even better, this takes 23 seconds: public int slow() { String s = "x"; for (int i = 0; i < 100000; ++i) { s += "x"; } return 10; } First the compiler could notice that I am actually creating a string s of 100000 "x" so it could automatically use s StringBuilder instead, or even better directly replace it with the resulting string as it is always the same. Second, It does not recognize that I do not actually use the string at all, so the whole loop could be discarded! Why, after so much manpower is going into fast compilers, are they still so relatively dumb? EDIT: Of course these are stupid examples that should never be used anywhere. But whenever I have to rewrite a beautiful and very readable code into something unreadable so that the compiler is happy and produces fast code, I wonder why compilers or some other automated tool can't do this work for me.

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  • Partitioning requests in code among several servers

    - by Jacques René Mesrine
    I have several forum servers (what they are is irrelevant) which stores posts from users and I want to be able to partition requests among these servers. I'm currently leaning towards partitioning them by geographic location. To improve the locality of data, users will be separated into regions e.g. North America, South America and so on. Is there any design pattern on how to implement the function that maps the partioning property to the server, so that this piece of code has high availability and would not become a single point of failure ? f( Region ) -> Server IP

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  • Logical Matrix .... Solution

    - by Sanju
    Suppose you have an NxN matrix and you have to check whether it's a upper diagonal matrix or not. Is there any generic method to solve this problem? I am elaborating my question: Some thing is like this: Suppose you have NXN matrix having the value of N=4 then matrix will look like this: |5 6 9 2| |1 8 4 9| |5 8 1 6| |7 6 3 2| Its a 4X4 square matrix and again if it's upper triangle matrix it will look something like this: |5 6 9 2| |1 8 4 0| |5 8 0 0| |7 0 0 0| I need to generate a generic program in any language to check wether a square matrix is upper trailgle or not.

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  • Self-Configuring Classes W/ Command Line Args: Pattern or Anti-Pattern?

    - by dsimcha
    I've got a program where a lot of classes have really complicated configuration requirements. I've adopted the pattern of decentralizing the configuration and allowing each class to take and parse the command line/configuration file arguments in its c'tor and do whatever it needs with them. (These are very coarse-grained classes that are only instantiated a few times, so there is absolutely no performance issue here.) This avoids having to do shotgun surgery to plumb new options I add through all the levels they need to be passed through. It also avoids having to specify each configuration option in multiple places (where it's parsed and where it's used). What are some advantages/disadvantages of this style of programming? It seems to reduce separation of concerns in that every class is now doing configuration stuff, and to make programs less self-documenting because what parameters a class takes becomes less explicit. OTOH, it seems to increase encapsulation in that it makes each class more self-contained because no other part of the program needs to know exactly what configuration parameters a class might need.

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  • Finding the maximum weight subsequence of an array of positive integers?

    - by BeeBand
    I'm tring to find the maximum weight subsequence of an array of positive integers - the catch is that no adjacent members are allowed in the final subsequence. The exact same question was asked here, and a recursive solution was given by MarkusQ. He provides an explanation, but can anyone help me understand how he has expanded the function? How does this solution take into consideration non-adjacent members?

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  • Throwing cats out of windows

    - by AndrewF
    Imagine you're in a tall building with a cat. The cat can survive a fall out of a low story window, but will die if thrown from a high floor. How can you figure out the longest drop that the cat can survive, using the least number of attempts? Obviously, if you only have one cat, then you can only search linearly. First throw the cat from the first floor. If it survives, throw it from the second. Eventually, after being thrown from floor f, the cat will die. You then know that floor f-1 was the maximal safe floor. But what if you have more than one cat? You can now try some sort of logarithmic search. Let's say that the build has 100 floors and you have two identical cats. If you throw the first cat out of the 50th floor and it dies, then you only have to search 50 floors linearly. You can do even better if you choose a lower floor for your first attempt. Let's say that you choose to tackle the problem 20 floors at a time and that the first fatal floor is #50. In that case, your first cat will survive flights from floors 20 and 40 before dying from floor 60. You just have to check floors 41 through 49 individually. That's a total of 12 attempts, which is much better than the 50 you would need had you attempted to use binary elimination. In general, what's the best strategy and it's worst-case complexity for an n-storied building with 2 cats? What about for n floors and m cats? Assume that all cats are equivalent: they will all survive or die from a fall from a given window. Also, every attempt is independent: if a cat survives a fall, it is completely unharmed. This isn't homework, although I may have solved it for school assignment once. It's just a whimsical problem that popped into my head today and I don't remember the solution. Bonus points if anyone knows the name of this problem or of the solution algorithm.

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  • How is the ">" operator implemented (on 32 bit integers)?

    - by Ron Klein
    Let's say that the environment is x86. How do compilers compile the "" operator on 32 bit integers. Logically, I mean. Without any knowledge of Assembly. Let's say that the high level language code is: int32 x, y; x = 123; y = 456; bool z; z = x > y; What does the compiler do for evaluating the expression x > y? Does it perform something like (assuming that x and y are positive integers): w = sign_of(x - y); if (w == 0) // expression is 'false' else if (w == 1) // expression is 'true' else // expression is 'false' Is there any reference for such information?

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  • How to call an event when the user "finally" selects an item in a list?

    - by herzmeister der welten
    When a user clicks once on an item in a Grid or a ListBox, that item is usually selected, hence most UI frameworks have a onSelected event or the like for that. However, how can we generally call the next step when a user "finally" selects an item by e.g. double clicking an entry? You know when some popup might appear in the context of the selected item and the user can do further stuff. Strangely enough, I think I have never seen a word for that in any UI framework. onPicked, onAccepted, onChosen, onFinallySelected, onResult? All kinda awkward or too special. Any other ideas?

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  • ruby1.9.1 can't find installed gems, yet ruby1.8 can...

    - by Zombies
    On ubuntu here. I installed both ruby1.8 and ruby1.9.1. I also ran these commands ruby1.8 setup.rb ruby1.9.1 setup.rb Both worked fine, I was also able to install gems for both. The gems in gem 1.9.1 and gem1.8 both show up correctly for gem list. The problems however begin with this: ruby1.9.1 some_script.rb. It cannot find any of the gems. I tried uncommenting some out figuring that parseconfig was the problem, yet it couldn't find any of the others, which are definetly in gem1.9.1 list. Any thoughts as to what is causing this/how to recover?

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  • What applications is Python optimal for?

    - by Alan
    I'm already a professional J2EE developer by day, and Rails developer by night. I'm planning on adding Python to my list of skills. I'm already convinced a language is just a tool, so I'm not interested in a religious war. I agree with the Pragmatic Programmers that learning one language/year is a good thing for your professional development So, in your considered opinion, what kinds of applications does Python hit the sweet spot? And why? What advantages does it have, and why do these advantages outweigh the costs in adopting Python? ADD: I also plan on learning a pure functional language like Scheme.

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  • What do you mean by the expressiveness in programming lanuguage?

    - by prosseek
    I see a lot of the word 'expressiveness' when people want to stress one language is better than the other. But I don't see exactly what they mean by it. Is it the verboseness/succinctness? I mean, if one language can write down something shorter than the other, does that mean expressiveness? Please refer to my other question - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2411772/article-about-code-density-as-a-measure-of-programming-language-power Is it the power of the language? Paul Graham says that one language is more powerful than the other language in a sense that one language can do that the other language can't do (for example, LISP can do something with macro that the other language can't do). Is it just something that makes life easier? Regular expression can be one of the examples. Is it a different way of solving the same problem: something like SQL to solve the search problem? What do you think about the expressiveness of a programming lanuage? Can you show the expressiveness using some code? What's the relationship with the expressiveness and DSL? Do people come up with DSL to get the expressiveness?

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  • Detecting regular expression in content during parse

    - by sonofdelphi
    I am writing a parser for C. I was just running it with some other language files (for fun, to see the extent C-likeness). It breaks down if the code being parsed contains regular expressions... Case 1: For example, while parsing the JavaScript code snippet, var phone="(304)434-5454" phone=phone.replace(/[\(\)-]/g, "") //Returns "3044345454" (removes "(", ")", and "-") The '(', '[' etc get matched as starters of new scopes, which may never be closed. Case 2: And, for the Perl code snippet, # Replace backslashes with two forward slashes # Any character can be used to delimit the regex $FILE_PATH =~ s@\\@//@g; The // gets matched as a comment... How can I detect a regular expression within the content text of a "C-like" program-file?

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  • Should i write my own forum? If my site has banning/PM/etc?

    - by acidzombie24
    I built a site from scratch (already done). It has banning, PM, comments, etc. The PMs and comments are done using markdown (like SO system). Should i write my own forum code or should i find one already made? What are reasons for or against writing my own? There are pros and cons for writing my own or using another software. But some cons keeping me from using another forum software is Multiple Logins: One for the site, one for separate forums. Need to Customization code: I'll need to change the toolbar in the forum software so i can access pages on the regular site. Look consistency: It may look drastically different from my site even after applying lots of css changes. Banning and User consistency. Users may be ban on site or on forums but not the other. users may select a different or multiple usernames on the forum instead of being forced to use the same username on both site and forum. What are reasons for or against writing my own and using forum software?

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  • What is the Software Development Lifecycle?

    - by j-t-s
    Our investor wants a SDLC. I've never written one before, and I don't have enough time to go and buy a book, or spend much time learning about them. From what I've been told about them, they consist of requirements (what needs to be done), and a list is done. Is this correct? Update: I have found this article which really helps to explain things in simple terms and very quickly. Not that I think an SDLC should be done quickly. In my case, I have no other option.

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  • How would you go about tackling this problem? [SOLVED in C++]

    - by incrediman
    Intro: EDIT: See solution at the bottom of this question (c++) I have a programming contest coming up in about half a week, and I've been prepping :) I found a bunch of questions from this canadian competition, they're great practice: http://cemc.math.uwaterloo.ca/contests/computing/2009/stage2/day1.pdf I'm looking at problem B ("Dinner"). Any idea where to start? I can't really think of anything besides the naive approach (ie. trying all permutations) which would take too long to be a valid answer. Btw, the language there says c++ and pascal I think, but i don't care what language you use - I mean really all I want is a hint as to the direction I should proceed in, and perhpas a short explanation to go along with it. It feels like I'm missing something obvious... Of course extended speculation is more than welcome, but I just wanted to clarify that I'm not looking for a full solution here :) Short version of the question: You have a binary string N of length 1-100 (in the question they use H's and G's instead of one's and 0's). You must remove all of the digits from it, in the least number of steps possible. In each step you may remove any number of adjacent digits so long as they are the same. That is, in each step you can remove any number of adjacent G's, or any number of adjacent H's, but you can't remove H's and G's in one step. Example: HHHGHHGHH Solution to the example: 1. HHGGHH (remove middle Hs) 2. HHHH (remove middle Gs) 3. Done (remove Hs) -->Would return '3' as the answer. Note that there can also be a limit placed on how large adjacent groups have to be when you remove them. For example it might say '2', and then you can't remove single digits (you'd have to remove pairs or larger groups at a time). Solution I took Mark Harrison's main algorithm, and Paradigm's grouping idea and used them to create the solution below. You can try it out on the official test cases if you want. //B.cpp //include debug messages? #define DEBUG false #include <iostream> #include <stdio.h> #include <vector> using namespace std; #define FOR(i,n) for (int i=0;i<n;i++) #define FROM(i,s,n) for (int i=s;i<n;i++) #define H 'H' #define G 'G' class String{ public: int num; char type; String(){ type=H; num=0; } String(char type){ this->type=type; num=1; } }; //n is the number of bits originally in the line //k is the minimum number of people you can remove at a time //moves is the counter used to determine how many moves we've made so far int n, k, moves; int main(){ /*Input from File*/ scanf("%d %d",&n,&k); char * buffer = new char[200]; scanf("%s",buffer); /*Process input into a vector*/ //the 'line' is a vector of 'String's (essentially contigious groups of identical 'bits') vector<String> line; line.push_back(String()); FOR(i,n){ //if the last String is of the correct type, simply increment its count if (line.back().type==buffer[i]) line.back().num++; //if the last String is of the wrong type but has a 0 count, correct its type and set its count to 1 else if (line.back().num==0){ line.back().type=buffer[i]; line.back().num=1; } //otherwise this is the beginning of a new group, so create the new group at the back with the correct type, and a count of 1 else{ line.push_back(String(buffer[i])); } } /*Geedily remove groups until there are at most two groups left*/ moves=0; int I;//the position of the best group to remove int bestNum;//the size of the newly connected group the removal of group I will create while (line.size()>2){ /*START DEBUG*/ if (DEBUG){ cout<<"\n"<<moves<<"\n----\n"; FOR(i,line.size()) printf("%d %c \n",line[i].num,line[i].type); cout<<"----\n"; } /*END DEBUG*/ I=1; bestNum=-1; FROM(i,1,line.size()-1){ if (line[i-1].num+line[i+1].num>bestNum && line[i].num>=k){ bestNum=line[i-1].num+line[i+1].num; I=i; } } //remove the chosen group, thus merging the two adjacent groups line[I-1].num+=line[I+1].num; line.erase(line.begin()+I);line.erase(line.begin()+I); moves++; } /*START DEBUG*/ if (DEBUG){ cout<<"\n"<<moves<<"\n----\n"; FOR(i,line.size()) printf("%d %c \n",line[i].num,line[i].type); cout<<"----\n"; cout<<"\n\nFinal Answer: "; } /*END DEBUG*/ /*Attempt the removal of the last two groups, and output the final result*/ if (line.size()==2 && line[0].num>=k && line[1].num>=k) cout<<moves+2;//success else if (line.size()==1 && line[0].num>=k) cout<<moves+1;//success else cout<<-1;//not everyone could dine. /*START DEBUG*/ if (DEBUG){ cout<<" moves."; } /*END DEBUG*/ }

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  • How to design a command line program reusable for a future development of a GUI?

    - by systempuntoout
    What are some best practices to keep in mind when developing a script program that could be integrated with a GUI, probably by somebody else, in the future? Possible scenario: i develop a fancy python CLI program that scrapes every unicorn images from the web i decide to publish it on github a unicorn fan programmer decides to take the sources and build a GUI on them. he\she gives up because my code is not reusable How do i avoid step four and let unicorn fan programmer build his\her GUI without hassle?

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  • Most readable way to write simple conditional check

    - by JRL
    What would be the most readable/best way to write a multiple conditional check such as shown below? Two possibilities that I could think of (this is Java but the language really doesn't matter here): Option 1: boolean c1 = passwordField.getPassword().length > 0; boolean c2 = !stationIDTextField.getText().trim().isEmpty(); boolean c3 = !userNameTextField.getText().trim().isEmpty(); if (c1 && c2 && c3) { okButton.setEnabled(true); } Option 2: if (passwordField.getPassword().length > 0 && !stationIDTextField.getText().trim().isEmpty() && !userNameTextField.getText().trim().isEmpty() { okButton.setEnabled(true); } What I don't like about option 2 is that the line wraps and then indentation becomes a pain. What I don't like about option 1 is that it creates variables for nothing and requires looking at two places. So what do you think? Any other options?

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  • (Ordered) Set Partitions in fixed-size Blocks

    - by Eugen
    Here is a function I would like to write but am unable to do so. Even if you don't / can't give a solution I would be grateful for tips. For example, I know that there is a correlation between the ordered represantions of the sum of an integer and ordered set partitions but that alone does not help me in finding the solution. So here is the description of the function I need: The Task Create an efficient* function List<int[]> createOrderedPartitions(int n_1, int n_2,..., int n_k) that returns a list of arrays of all set partions of the set {0,...,n_1+n_2+...+n_k-1} in number of arguments blocks of size (in this order) n_1,n_2,...,n_k (e.g. n_1=2, n_2=1, n_3=1 -> ({0,1},{3},{2}),...). Here is a usage example: int[] partition = createOrderedPartitions(2,1,1).get(0); partition[0]; // -> 0 partition[1]; // -> 1 partition[2]; // -> 3 partition[3]; // -> 2 Note that the number of elements in the list is (n_1+n_2+...+n_n choose n_1) * (n_2+n_3+...+n_n choose n_2) * ... * (n_k choose n_k). Also, createOrderedPartitions(1,1,1) would create the permutations of {0,1,2} and thus there would be 3! = 6 elements in the list. * by efficient I mean that you should not initially create a bigger list like all partitions and then filter out results. You should do it directly. Extra Requirements If an argument is 0 treat it as if it was not there, e.g. createOrderedPartitions(2,0,1,1) should yield the same result as createOrderedPartitions(2,1,1). But at least one argument must not be 0. Of course all arguments must be = 0. Remarks The provided pseudo code is quasi Java but the language of the solution doesn't matter. In fact, as long as the solution is fairly general and can be reproduced in other languages it is ideal. Actually, even better would be a return type of List<Tuple<Set>> (e.g. when creating such a function in Python). However, then the arguments wich have a value of 0 must not be ignored. createOrderedPartitions(2,0,2) would then create [({0,1},{},{2,3}),({0,2},{},{1,3}),({0,3},{},{1,2}),({1,2},{},{0,3}),...] Background I need this function to make my mastermind-variation bot more efficient and most of all the code more "beautiful". Take a look at the filterCandidates function in my source code. There are unnecessary / duplicate queries because I'm simply using permutations instead of specifically ordered partitions. Also, I'm just interested in how to write this function. My ideas for (ugly) "solutions" Create the powerset of {0,...,n_1+...+n_k}, filter out the subsets of size n_1, n_2 etc. and create the cartesian product of the n subsets. However this won't actually work because there would be duplicates, e.g. ({1,2},{1})... First choose n_1 of x = {0,...,n_1+n_2+...+n_n-1} and put them in the first set. Then choose n_2 of x without the n_1 chosen elements beforehand and so on. You then get for example ({0,2},{},{1,3},{4}). Of course, every possible combination must be created so ({0,4},{},{1,3},{2}), too, and so on. Seems rather hard to implement but might be possible. Research I guess this goes in the direction I want however I don't see how I can utilize it for my specific scenario. http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Combinations

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