3 ms·

You can still have both: an algorithm that technically has no formal numerical limit, but have warnings or errors when it reaches some condition that is clearly

You can still have both: an algorithm that technically has no formal numerical limit, but have warnings or errors when it reaches some condition that is clearly outside the design scope. For example, you might have a system that warns somehow if you start inserting items at the front of a vector with over a million items (when you originally expected the vector to be used for tens of items). If the structure is suddenly being used for something way outside of it's design scope, it's probably in need of a re-think.

stefan_ 4y ago
Nope. "No formal limit" or "infinity" is just another way of saying "dynamic memory allocation". There is a reason you usually find this advice in game adjacent places; to punt everything to the dynamic memory allocator makes it very difficult to know if you are keeping within the memory-starved limits of e.g. the game console you are developing for, or on mobile to keep a garbage collector from stepping in and ruining your day.
- adhesive_wombat 4y ago
  "Nope." An "algorithm" can be about things other than memory allocation. Say you have a collection of sensors the you poll. ZOI is saying that the system that polls them shouldn't[1] have some kind of hard assumption that there will only ever be, say, specifically 4. You could still statically allocate the storage on a given system, for example in an embedded system where the software is compile-time configured for a given hardware. However, if you pass the "poll_sensors" function a size of 60 million when the system was designed for "about 4, I guess", it's likely that you're operating the algorithm in a regime it wasn't designed for. You may (or may not, this is just another trade-off) wish to know about it. [1]: of course you can always construct exceptions. If you follow every rule you subscribe to dogmatically, then you're doing something more akin to religion then engineering.
  - mellavora 4y ago
    > If you follow every rule you subscribe to dogmatically, then you're doing something more akin to religion My impression of religion is dogmatically following only a changeable subset of the rules you subscribe to, where subscribe means "they are in our special book"

stefan_ 4y ago

Nope. "No formal limit" or "infinity" is just another way of saying "dynamic memory allocation". There is a reason you usually find this advice in game adjacent places; to punt everything to the dynamic memory allocator makes it very difficult to know if you are keeping within the memory-starved limits of e.g. the game console you are developing for, or on mobile to keep a garbage collector from stepping in and ruining your day.

adhesive_wombat 4y ago
"Nope." An "algorithm" can be about things other than memory allocation. Say you have a collection of sensors the you poll. ZOI is saying that the system that polls them shouldn't[1] have some kind of hard assumption that there will only ever be, say, specifically 4. You could still statically allocate the storage on a given system, for example in an embedded system where the software is compile-time configured for a given hardware. However, if you pass the "poll_sensors" function a size of 60 million when the system was designed for "about 4, I guess", it's likely that you're operating the algorithm in a regime it wasn't designed for. You may (or may not, this is just another trade-off) wish to know about it. [1]: of course you can always construct exceptions. If you follow every rule you subscribe to dogmatically, then you're doing something more akin to religion then engineering.
- mellavora 4y ago
  > If you follow every rule you subscribe to dogmatically, then you're doing something more akin to religion My impression of religion is dogmatically following only a changeable subset of the rules you subscribe to, where subscribe means "they are in our special book"