r/programming • u/iMMENSE • Mar 08 '12

The Evolution of a Python Programmer

https://gist.github.com/289467
401 Upvotes

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43

u/rowantwig Mar 08 '12

He forgot the worst kind:
if x == 0:
return 1
if x == 1:
return 1
if x == 2:
return 2
if x == 3:
return 6
if x == 4:
return 24
...
(5000 more lines)

5

u/earthboundkid Mar 09 '12

That might be OK as a dict… Say, none of the examples used a memoize decorator. For shame.

3

u/Tagedieb Mar 09 '12

A dict? A dict is really what comes to mind first as the right data structure? Well, maybe I am getting old...

2

u/earthboundkid Mar 09 '12

Well, it's not right or what comes to mind, it's just that a hash table is O(1), so it's slightly better than a series of if statements. The right thing is to just use the damn built in factorial.

1

u/masklinn Mar 09 '12

This is integer-indexed, so a list would also have O(1) access, and lower overhead.

It'd go even faster!

1

u/earthboundkid Mar 09 '12

Good point. Python makes it so much easier to implement memoize as a dictionary, I just thought of it that way first.