Lec 8 | MIT 6.00 Introduction to Computer Science and Programming, Fall 2008

[PoisonedV]

Besides struggling with some of the initial assignments, this has given me the most trouble so far... gonna take a lot of effort to get through this one

[theVex97]

Are the handouts available somewhere?

[Geebsee]

I encourage anyone to have a look at the channel: thenewboston if you're struggling with this... This is a more general programming and computer science course, where it's expected that the students do quite a bit extra work to keep up with the course load. thenewboston's Python tutorial is 47 short videos long which can be covered in a few days and covers much of the basic syntax in Python.

[OverG88]

That girl or guy in down-right corner spent half a class on facebook! :D

[alotan2acs]

This guy is a boss

[callmejon]

anyone unclear about big O, either google it or read this, took me 10mins to understand this lec

watch?v=4p1WqREIJq8

thanks

[nj20baller]

I take breaks to go study what the hell the guys just said, i suck at math.

[Belgarath]

That awasome moment when you know the answer of a question Eric asked.

[RandyManaqr317]

lol bin so lieb

[DustinTROM]

I saw the colored rings and immediately got excited about this lecture.

[phnaargos]

Is it just me, or is the TOH algorithm way more difficult than the others? Was I supposed to figure this one out by myself? Even now, knowing the solution, I still have trouble getting my head around it. Until this point I was able to follow everything in this course rather easily ...

[agapitoflores001]

Fantastic lecture. I wanna be as brainy as him.

[SunflashMace]

In the binary search, where they calculate mid he uses the line:

mid = (first - last)/2 + first

Isn't that the exact same as:

mid = (fist + last)/2

I'm not sure I like how this guy's mind works. lol

[lightninggodzeus]

@SunflashMace it's not the same.

Ex: let's say first = 5 and last = 3

(5-3)/2 + 5 = 9 for the first equation

(5+3)/2 = 4 for the second

[MrBTie]

@lightninggodzeus but the list is sorted, first is never bigger than last, right?

[crwilliams88]

I am more confused than a chameleon in a bag of skittles trying to understand the recursion process of Towers(). The multiple returns is what's really getting me.

[ldb579932]

Prof makes error at 28:54 "As Emeril would say, Pow!"

This is wrong. Emeril says "Bam!" not "Pow!"

[matthewkevinpowers]

the search algorithm only works when the integers are in ascending order

>>> b = [1, 8, 7, 20, 100, 200, 3]

>>> search(b, 3)

False 2

[randomlettersasdfg]

As someone without any background in programming, im basically completely lost by this point.

[onlyoneskiez]

@randomlettersasdfg He barley touched the language, only thing he went over was the logic to some mathematic concepts.

[DanielWayne329]

@randomlettersasdfg thats why this is an MIT course and not a community college course. MIT is not going to take it slow. get it the first time, or dont get it. (or in youtubes case, rewind XD). not to mention, you have to remember that the instructors assign homework for a reason. it helps your understanding of the course so you are better prepared for the lectures. and you my friend, i would guess, are not doing the homework. so if you have no background programming experience, its no surprise

[TheMartingull]

@randomlettersasdfg The assignments are really important in getting the content. Programming needs to be practised a lot to be gotten. Reading and following lectures are not even half the job

[loko95ftp]

17 people bothered to comment :)

[csarath]

great lecture. I really enjoyed the class and felt like sitting in the class after 8 years! now I'm really brushed up algorithm complexity lessons!

[kristianjensendk]

Why does he hand out candy... creapy

[ahmadnraja]

Finally I feel comfortable with complexity ..

The last part about access time was something I wasn't considering in my implementations. Great Lecture..

[leozzord]

Awesomeness. MIT's seal of quality, for sure.

[computersguy13]

In Python 3, in bsearch() the line should be:

mid = math.floor(first + (last-first)/2)

If you don't, it returns and error that mid shouldn't be an int, not a float. You'll also need to import math as well.

[MrDogbert2]

Eric Grimson is the man.

[jdtbruck]

When he says binary search, he actually means "bisection search" refer to lecture 6.

[tkearn5000]

The code in exp3 has an error. The line if(b%2) * 2 == b will almost never evaluate to true. What was meant was either if(b/2)*2 == b using integer division, or if(b%2)==0. The intent is to find out if b is an even number. The original code did not accomplish that.

[TakaSuzukiJP]

I also found that. With the original code, the iteration of exp3 is same as exp 2.

[sanGuziy]

@tkearn5000 Agree, wanted to post it myself)

[matthewkevinpowers]

@tkearn5000 I am a new programmer and I just assumed I wasn't getting something because these are MIT people

[apiitg]

@tkearn5000 Professor says that he is assuming integers rt before he shows exp3 so it should work.

[sivius]

@apiitg No it shouldn't. This is *supposed* to check if b is even or not. Let's try it with b=8. (8%2)*2 = 0*2 = 0. Since 0 != 8, it will return false, despite b being even.

[eliotball]

The % finds the remainder in integer addition.

7%3 = 1

[ronny22]

fantastic

[mademedoit]

what is the modulo doing in exp3?