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You're not wrong. This entire article is a classic example of Computer Science failure. It's someone who knows program optimisation in the abstract and nothing

You're not wrong. This entire article is a classic example of Computer Science failure. It's someone who knows program optimisation in the abstract and nothing about the actual target problem from a domain knowledge perspective. They went about optimising bad code as in quality of thought level, rather than actually getting to grips with the true requirement first. Though perhaps a computer science win, but a software engineer fail.

mlyle 6y ago
In a lot of ways, the original implementation makes a lot more sense than this "optimized" solution. Something like the original brute force, compare all the points' distances variant is how I'd be inclined to write one of my unit tests for the grid alignment routines. Trying a few dozen points on a few dozen grid variants is a way to make sure I've not completely screwed up math-- whether off by one, rounding problems, etc, while applying sanity checks on the overall grid code base. This binary search "optimized" abomination is... more difficult to read and reason about than either than the integer math or "brute-force" solutions, and slower to boot. All it has going for it is that it's not the absolute slowest choice. It may not be integer math, because we've not been told if the grid is regular... but it certainly is still easier than this.
- projectdelphai 6y ago
  I mean maybe but if you told me you could take my code that runs in less than a second and make it more readable but it would take 30 minutes to run instead . . . hell no I'm not taking you up on your offer. I'll just comment and document the existing solution better and call it a day.
  - mlyle 6y ago
    You're missing the point. The solution here is faster than the absolute naive solution of finding all distances, but it is both slower and less readable than integer math grid conversion.. I could see why you would make the choice of the naive, slow solution. I could see why you would choose the fast, integer math grid conversion one. But I don't see why you would choose something slower than the optimum solution that is also much, much less readable. That is, the naive solution and the integer math solution are Pareto-optimal choices... and this abomination ain't.
dang 6y ago
Please don't post supercilious dismissals of other people or their work, even if they made a mistake and/or were supercilious in their own right. It just contributes to making this a nasty place. The differences between this comment and the GP comment are significant. The GP included specific information, where this comment is just a putdown, and the GP allowed for the possibility that there is missing information, i.e. that the "author is an idiot" interpretation is not the only possible one. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- andi999 6y ago
  I usually agree, but in this case maybe the author needs to hear exactly that. At least the author might the want to stop boasting about these things (and save his future career etc).
  - dang 6y ago
    I appreciate the sentiment, but that is probably better reserved for personal interactions than internet pile-ons. There are lots of factors we don't know. Also, if we're to be honest with ourselves, internet pile-ons don't arise out of compassionate concern for the other. That's a justification that gets tacked on. It's moot anyhow, because the main reason not to have threads go that way is that it does bad things to the community. Each time it happens, we deepen the pathways towards making HN nastier and more toxic, and since those are the default paths already, we need to consciously cultivate the opposite.
  - kolbe 6y ago
    This was written in 2015. What's worse logic: his code or HN thinking that shit talking him five years later in a forum we don't even know if he sees is constructive?
    - dang 6y ago
      Obviously I agree, but please don't add to the problem by dumping more nastiness into the thread. Note this guideline also: "Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." It's worth remembering that HN is a statistical cloud of posts, not a person, and so can't think anything. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

mlyle 6y ago

In a lot of ways, the original implementation makes a lot more sense than this "optimized" solution. Something like the original brute force, compare all the points' distances variant is how I'd be inclined to write one of my unit tests for the grid alignment routines. Trying a few dozen points on a few dozen grid variants is a way to make sure I've not completely screwed up math-- whether off by one, rounding problems, etc, while applying sanity checks on the overall grid code base. This binary search "optimized" abomination is... more difficult to read and reason about than either than the integer math or "brute-force" solutions, and slower to boot. All it has going for it is that it's not the absolute slowest choice. It may not be integer math, because we've not been told if the grid is regular... but it certainly is still easier than this.

projectdelphai 6y ago
I mean maybe but if you told me you could take my code that runs in less than a second and make it more readable but it would take 30 minutes to run instead . . . hell no I'm not taking you up on your offer. I'll just comment and document the existing solution better and call it a day.
- mlyle 6y ago
  You're missing the point. The solution here is faster than the absolute naive solution of finding all distances, but it is both slower and less readable than integer math grid conversion.. I could see why you would make the choice of the naive, slow solution. I could see why you would choose the fast, integer math grid conversion one. But I don't see why you would choose something slower than the optimum solution that is also much, much less readable. That is, the naive solution and the integer math solution are Pareto-optimal choices... and this abomination ain't.

dang 6y ago

Please don't post supercilious dismissals of other people or their work, even if they made a mistake and/or were supercilious in their own right. It just contributes to making this a nasty place. The differences between this comment and the GP comment are significant. The GP included specific information, where this comment is just a putdown, and the GP allowed for the possibility that there is missing information, i.e. that the "author is an idiot" interpretation is not the only possible one. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

andi999 6y ago
I usually agree, but in this case maybe the author needs to hear exactly that. At least the author might the want to stop boasting about these things (and save his future career etc).
- dang 6y ago
  I appreciate the sentiment, but that is probably better reserved for personal interactions than internet pile-ons. There are lots of factors we don't know. Also, if we're to be honest with ourselves, internet pile-ons don't arise out of compassionate concern for the other. That's a justification that gets tacked on. It's moot anyhow, because the main reason not to have threads go that way is that it does bad things to the community. Each time it happens, we deepen the pathways towards making HN nastier and more toxic, and since those are the default paths already, we need to consciously cultivate the opposite.
- kolbe 6y ago
  This was written in 2015. What's worse logic: his code or HN thinking that shit talking him five years later in a forum we don't even know if he sees is constructive?
  - dang 6y ago
    Obviously I agree, but please don't add to the problem by dumping more nastiness into the thread. Note this guideline also: "Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." It's worth remembering that HN is a statistical cloud of posts, not a person, and so can't think anything. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html