Things you shouldn't do: Two pointers in one field.

Re:Things you shouldn't do: Two pointers in one field. by jacquesm on Sunday May 16, 2010 @11:58PM (#1353507)

Hey cool, thanks for digging that up, it certainly looks similar at first glance.

I can't tell you how many times I've had the feeling that finally I was doing anything at all that was original and then to find out (usually within five minutes, but this time at least a lot of years later) that it was already old hat when I was a toddler.

Oh well. Keep trying I guess.

One problem with stuff like this is simply to find what is out there given a problem description.

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Re:Things you shouldn't do: Two pointers in one field. by lsb on Monday May 17, 2010 @12:12AM (#1353531)

The name of it was on the tip of my tongue as I read your description, so I googled for "probabilistic constant-space test for membership", and voila, first result.

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Re:Things you shouldn't do: Two pointers in one field. by jacquesm on Monday May 17, 2010 @12:16AM (#1353542)

I bow to your google fu, that would have taken me a week.

At least.

If I would have found it at all. This is one of those areas where I think I can really feel that having English as a first language - or at least a degree in computer science - would have helped tremendously, just knowing the right terminology can be such a huge advantage.

I can parse your description of it but I could never come up with it in those terms. I'd be looking for "compressed index" or "candidate records algorithm" or something like that.

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