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Um, yeah. Pigeonhole principle. Not exactly news... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigeonhole_principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigeonhole_principle Any pr

by brazzy 17y ago

Um, yeah. Pigeonhole principle. Not exactly news... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigeonhole_principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigeonhole_principle Any programmer who does not know this near-instinctively (and also related things like the impossibility of having distinct hash values for all strings) should be ashamed of himself and brush up on basic math.

rlpb 17y ago
Additionally, a compression algorithm need only have a worst case of adding one extra bit in the case that it couldn't compress a file.
- niyazpk 17y ago
  This post reminded me about the day when I invented a perfect compression algorithm ( http://www.diovo.com/2010/01/the-perfect-compression-algorithm/ http://www.diovo.com/2010/01/the-perfect-compression-algorit... )
  - deleted 17y ago
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abdulhaq 17y ago
'Near-instinctive' knowledge of this, before being exposed to the basic idea, would make a good marker for high intelligence, and one which I failed at (and I'm no slouch). Ask a few colleagues about it, and prepare to be disappointed!
- brazzy 17y ago
  I did mean "near-instinctive" to apply after having learned about the concepts of surjective, injective and bijective functions. These are so basic and important that I believe you can't be a professional programmer without having been exposed to them, and having them stick at an instinctive level.