From: Alex Shulgin <alex.shulgin@...>
Date: 2008-02-16T22:14:55+09:00
Subject: Re: The Smallest Circle (#157)

On Feb 15, 3:19 pm, Matthew D Moss <matthew.m...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The Smallest Circle
> by Matthew Moss
>
> Your task this week sounds simple enough, but may be more difficult
> than it first appears. Given a set of points on a plane, your goal is
> to find the smallest circle that encloses those points.
>
> You are to provide a function, *encircle*, that takes an array of
> points and returns the smallest circle surrounding those points.
> Start with the following base code and extend as needed to solve the
> problem:
>
>      class Point < Struct.new(:x, :y)
>          def self.random
>              Point.new(rand, rand)
>          end

May I propose a bit refined random method?

     class Point < Struct.new(:x, :y)
         def self.random
             Point.new(0.5 - rand, 0.5 - rand)
         end

This should give us negative coordinates as well. :-)

--
Cheers and welcome new quizmasters!
Alex