trivial typo: "we didn't care for the width of the roads" care about.
It could be criticized that you already knew Dijkstra's algorithm so you bent your example to fit it, but I don't see how you can avoid that situation when teaching. Indeed a lot of programming is about having a personal toolbox of solutions and finding one tha…
trivial typo: "we didn't care for the width of the roads" care about.
It could be criticized that you already knew Dijkstra's algorithm so you bent your example to fit it, but I don't see how you can avoid that situation when teaching. Indeed a lot of programming is about having a personal toolbox of solutions and finding one that fits, but that's shoe-horning not abstraction.
The paragraph about travel time perhaps should mention one-way streets?
And perhaps it needs to be followed by a section introducing connectivity/network before you jump to algorithm.
The algorithm para is very short and sudden and anticlimactic. You seemed to be building to something then you just stop and say "we're done".
Thanks! Those are very good recommendations. I didn't intend to make this a technical article so I didn't want to go into how Dijkstra works or anything too technical. It was merely an illustrative example of how to turn a real-life problem into something manageable. Although I do agree perhaps a bit more could be said on the how, to really hammer the point that abstraction makes problems tractable. I'll definitely revisit this topic in the future.
feedback:
trivial typo: "we didn't care for the width of the roads" care about.
It could be criticized that you already knew Dijkstra's algorithm so you bent your example to fit it, but I don't see how you can avoid that situation when teaching. Indeed a lot of programming is about having a personal toolbox of solutions and finding one that fits, but that's shoe-horning not abstraction.
The paragraph about travel time perhaps should mention one-way streets?
And perhaps it needs to be followed by a section introducing connectivity/network before you jump to algorithm.
The algorithm para is very short and sudden and anticlimactic. You seemed to be building to something then you just stop and say "we're done".
Thanks! Those are very good recommendations. I didn't intend to make this a technical article so I didn't want to go into how Dijkstra works or anything too technical. It was merely an illustrative example of how to turn a real-life problem into something manageable. Although I do agree perhaps a bit more could be said on the how, to really hammer the point that abstraction makes problems tractable. I'll definitely revisit this topic in the future.