Re:Interesting data structures: the BK-tree
by mack73 on Tuesday April 04, 2017 @12:56AM
(#14029581)
Thanks, The idea behind the BK-tree is ingenious.
I'm struggling with finding a use case for that data structure through. Why would you construct a BK-tree that would only become powerful when it contains millions of words, which would then create a nuisance when representing that amount of data in memory, making it not so fast anymore, when you could represent the same data in a compressed form and with the same (as well as an extended set of) querying capabilities?
Perhaps BK-trees are for big machines with powerful CPUs? I'm sure there is a setup that would make that tree in fact better than any other tree.
Re:Interesting data structures: the BK-tree
by rocho on Tuesday April 04, 2017 @06:46AM
(#14031246)
I don't think the best use case for BK-trees is spell-checking and words. The area in which they are used most successfully is image deduplication. In that case the metric you're going to use is some form of perceptual hashing.
I'm struggling with finding a use case for that data structure through. Why would you construct a BK-tree that would only become powerful when it contains millions of words, which would then create a nuisance when representing that amount of data in memory, making it not so fast anymore, when you could represent the same data in a compressed form and with the same (as well as an extended set of) querying capabilities?
Perhaps BK-trees are for big machines with powerful CPUs? I'm sure there is a setup that would make that tree in fact better than any other tree.