Re:Nearly All Binary Searches and Mergesorts Are Broken (2006)
by mnarayan01 on Friday July 22, 2016 @10:02PM
(#12148016)
If you sufficiently specify the runtime environment the proof can still work: Since the array is composed of integers, many C compilers/machine architectures will dictate a maximum size of the array s.t. there can't be overflow.
Re:Nearly All Binary Searches and Mergesorts Are Broken (2006)
by haimez on Friday July 22, 2016 @10:19PM
(#12148055)
Touche, and fair enough- although you would expect them to call out that limitation since it's both critical and highly un-general. Bytes are comparable, small, and common enough to at least accommodate an exclusionary statement in the proof.
I'm pretty sure you're right though. Integers must have been defined as infinite in the proof for it to have been a proof at all.