linked-list-good-taste
Git
linked-list-good-taste | Git | |
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12 | 287 | |
1,968 | 50,099 | |
- | 1.6% | |
0.0 | 10.0 | |
about 1 year ago | 3 days ago | |
C | C | |
MIT License | GNU General Public License v3.0 or later |
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linked-list-good-taste
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I wrote these short methods to remove a node from an unbalanced BST. Is it "bad style"?
I'm in a data structures course as an undergraduate over the summer. For practice, I made an unbalanced binary search tree class in C++ with search, insertion, removal. We were given pseudo-code for removal, but I noticed a lot of repeated logic could be used if I traversed the tree with a pointer to pointer to Node, and that it didn't need recursion. I saw the same logic as what's explained by "Linus Torvalds' linked list argument for good taste, explained", and I'm pretty familiar with it by now. My tree traversal about 40 lines of actual code, but about 70 lines with comments. However, I showed this to a classmate, and they couldn't follow it at all, and said that it seemed complicated. I'm also concerned because this logic isn't portable to any language that doesn't allow pointers to pointers, i.e. not in Java, Python, etc., only C, C++, and maybe Rust (I don't know if this is portable there).
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What's the use of pointers-to-pointers?
One usecase I find kinda neat is for linked list algorithms. See https://github.com/mkirchner/linked-list-good-taste
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Guess my favorite language based on my frustrated Python comments
Don't believe me? Check out Torvalds elegant solution to remove an item from a linked list using a pointer to pointer. This algo is unimplementable using references. https://github.com/mkirchner/linked-list-good-taste
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So what should I use then?
Philosophically do-while should have very rare applications. Because as programmers our code should be as generic as possible. If the code is treating the first iteration as different it is by definition not as generic as possible. This is illustrated by how the example you provided creates a bug when n=1. Linux Torvald's linked list example is a famous one for how a special case is removed: https://github.com/mkirchner/linked-list-good-taste
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Accessing the value of a double pointer to a list node
I'm struggling a little bit with double pointers here. I have a pretty simple personal linked list lib for ints and I'm experimenting with incorporating some of this "good taste" logic based off a TED talk given by Linus Torvalds.
- How's my Doubly Linked List?
- linked-list-good-taste - A deeper explanation on the code Linus Torvalds considers better for removal of an item from a linked list
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Notation as an avenue for exploring zero-cost abstractions?
A couple of days ago this got posted to /r/programming : https://github.com/mkirchner/linked-list-good-taste
Git
- Git tracks itself. See it's first commit of itself
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Resistance against London tube map commit history (a.k.a. git merge hell) (2015)
Look at any PR/patch series that got merged into the Git project. https://github.com/git/git/
Any random one. Because those that did not meet the minimum criteria for a well-crafted history would not have passed review.
- GitHub Git Mirror Down
- Four ways to solve the "Remote Origin Already Exists" error.
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So You Think You Know Git – Git Tips and Tricks by Scott Chacon
Boy, I can't find this either (but also, the kernel mailing list is _really_ difficult to search). I really remember Linus saying something like "it's not a real SCM, but maybe someone could build one on top of it someday" or something like that, but I cannot figure out how to find that.
You _can_ see, though, that in his first README, he refers to what he's building as not a "real SCM":
https://github.com/git/git/commit/e83c5163316f89bfbde7d9ab23...
- Maintain-Git.txt
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Git Commit Messages by Jeff King
Here is the direct link, as HN somehow removes the query string: https://github.com/git/git/commits?author=peff&since=2023-10...
- Git commit messages by Jeff King
- My favourite Git commit (2019)
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Do we think of Git commits as diffs, snapshots, and/or histories?
I understand all that.
I'm saying, if you write a survey and one of the possible answers is "diff", but you don't clearly define what you mean by "diff", then don't be surprised if respondents use any reasonable definition that makes sense to them. Ask an ambiguous question, get a mishmash of answers.
The thing that Git uses for packfiles is called a "delta" by Git, but it's also reasonable to call it a "diff". After all, Git's delta algorithm is "greatly inspired by parts of LibXDiff from Davide Libenzi"[1]. Not LibXDelta but LibXDiff.
Yes, how Git stores blobs (using deltas) is orthogonal to how Git uses blobs. But while that orthogonality is useful for reasoning about Git, it's not wrong to think of a commit as the totality of what Git does, including that optimization. (Some people, when learning Git, stumble over the way it's described as storing full copies, think it's wasteful. For them to wrap their heads around Git, they have to understand that the optimization exists. Which makes sense because Git probably wouldn't be practical if it lacked that optimization.)
The reason I'm bringing all this up is, if you're trying to explain Git, which is what the original article is about, then it's very important to keep in mind that someone who is learning Git needs to know what you mean when you say "diff". Most people who already know Git would tend to gravitate toward the definition of "diff" that you're assuming (the thing that Git computes on the fly and never stores), but people who already know Git aren't the target audience when you're teaching Git.
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[1] https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/diff-delta.c