Sorting - We're Doing It Wrong
blog.rodneyrehm.de
blog.rodneyrehm.de
"When writing (in text, not in JavaScript) about properties on specific prototypes, you may use the JavaScript notation, foo.prototype.bar. However, this shorter (non-JavaScript) notation is often used instead: foo#bar. Basically, the hash (#) stands for .prototype. — fancy huh?"
new Array().sort === Array.prototype.sort # trueLook, when you're writing an article about programming, stick to spelling things out properly.
It's ok to use acronyms when talking about companies (AT&T, IBM), nations (USA, USSR), or long technical terms as long as you define them early in the document so the reader knows what to expect.
Programming docs should explicitly refer to code in the language being discussed. Array.prototype.sort tells me exactly what you're talking about and my brain doesn't have to make mental leaps to understand what is being said. If its a language I'm not familiar with, like Objective C for example, then I probably will want to copy and search on code being demoed to learn about it. This would be very hard to do if I have to translate your custom abbreviations into the terminology everyone else in the world uses.
Keep it simple and succinct.
Please just stick to writing out ".prototype", if writing for a general audience.
The sort() method takes optional arguments for controlling the comparisons.
"key" specifies a function of one argument that is used to extract a comparison key from each list element.
In general, the key and reverse conversion processes are much faster than specifying an equivalent cmp function. This is because cmp is called multiple times for each list element while key and reverse touch each element only once.
I understand the importance of linkbait titles, but specifying the context (e.g. "we're doing it wrong in JavaScript") would save people time without weakening the impact on those who might be interested in the article (JavaScript developers).
I wouldn't be bothered as much, but in some places if you get into too many technical details it seems to confound people and then frustrate them. This is kind of silly since I'm still in college and probably one of the least educated coders here.
Seems wrong to be then downvoted for using basic technical knowledge in a place called Hacker News.
https://gist.github.com/2772234
I am currently using this in server only environments, so there is no comparison for DOM elements.
I can't imagine any sort algorithm for which it can possibly be legitimate to say it's 'hard to get correct' unless it's in the sentence 'it's hard for a first-year computer science student to get correct.'
i mean, what is more traditional and basic than implementing tricky sort algorithms?
"When Jon Bentley assigned it as a problem in a course for professional programmers, he found that an astounding ninety percent failed to code a binary search correctly after several hours of working on it,[7] and another study shows that accurate code for it is only found in five out of twenty textbooks.[8] Furthermore, Bentley's own implementation of binary search, published in his 1986 book Programming Pearls, contains an error that remained undetected for over twenty years.[9]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_search_algorithm#Impleme...
int mid = (low + high)/2;
low + high > Integer.MAX_INTEGER
int mid = (low + high) >>> 1;
Also from that page, here's the link to the bug in Sun's tracker, priority 2-High, evaluation: "Can't even compute average of two ints" is pretty embarrassing.
My teacher told me it is not possible and convinced me to give up.