The audacity to do such a thing…
this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2023
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A common problem (before learning it is impossible/fraught with danger) is categorisation, like sorting of strings.
Say you have a text, and need to count words of different lengths.
One intuitive approach is to pass through it once and add each word to a list for the corresponding length, as well as making lists as needed. No 7 letter words, no 7-letter-word-list, even though there are longer words.
As humans we're good at sorting things into an unknown number of categories, and we have to unlearn that for programming
Would one not just use a dict/hashmap with int keys labelling lengths and the list of strings as the values?
A programmer might, as trained/conditioned by the limits of programming languages.
A human would intuitively not, these are meaningless and/or convoluted concepts to the untrained human.
I like the implication that programmers aren't humans, but a sort of alien being naturally apt at algorithmic thinking, while puny humans are an irrational species that needs to undergo training from the mighty race of programmers if they hope to get into the field brought us here by the aliens
Found the Python guy.
'List' is the correct abstract term for any data structure that holds a given number of values in an order, regardless of the implementation. So Python's List, or C++'s Array or Vector, or a Linked List are all considered lists in the abstract sense.
I did use 'list' and forgot it is called an 'array' or 'vector' in other languages. So sure, close enough :-)
Because those are limited to Python? 😜
This makes a ton of sense and I think you probably solved this mystery for me.
"Oh I need to iterate over something, and keep track of new information as I do it, therefore I should be able to create 'dynamic variables' as I progress."
Yep, what you failed to realise at the time is you've just invented a dynamic data structure like a list or a dictionary.