Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2004 20:22:59 +0200 (EET) From: Narvi <narvi@haldjas.folklore.ee> To: Colin Percival <colin.percival@wadham.ox.ac.uk> Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Most wanted Message-ID: <20040307202113.I68396@haldjas.folklore.ee> In-Reply-To: <6.0.1.1.1.20040306214526.08c5ed70@imap.sfu.ca> References: <Pine.LNX.4.43.0403011839470.3269-100000@pilchuck.reedmedia.net> <20040306005744.T38020@haldjas.folklore.ee> <20040306013914.D38020@haldjas.folklore.ee> <6.0.1.1.1.20040306214526.08c5ed70@imap.sfu.ca>
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On Sat, 6 Mar 2004, Colin Percival wrote: > At 21:44 06/03/2004, stephan mantler wrote: > >Also, to get a bit closer to the original topic. I can't remember where I > >read this (DDJ probably), but apparently programmers who have a deep > >understanding of computer architecture through low level programming also > >produce "better" code in high level languages. My interpretation is that > >they are simply feeding the compiler a better foundation to work with. > > Having seen quite a lot of undergraduate "computer science" students > over past decade, I can certainly support that interpretation. Nobody > quite understands why hash tables are not a perfect data structure > until they've tried to implement one in assembly language. (And, after > performing such a task, few people will use hash tables without asking > themselves, at least for a moment, if there might be a cheaper solution > to the problem at hand.) yeah, so they go for a simple singly linked list instead :( hash tables are a very non-trivial data structure, and the majority of way of implementing them are really gross from the point of view of having a deep memory hierarchy. > > Colin Percival >
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