From: Robert Klemme <shortcutter@...>
Date: 2011-03-07T21:40:35+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby - Missed some core computer science world ?

On Sun, Mar 6, 2011 at 10:05 AM, Lucky Dev <lucky.developer@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am just wondering, if the ruby world is sooo
> immersed in its beautiness and is not doing much to embrace cleverness
> in ruby world.
>
> I mean, the whole world of datastructures and algorithms, seems to have
> much lower importance on a ruby programmer's mind. Is it so?

Certainly not for me but it may be the case for the community on average.

> Also, I don't see much "good" books on datastructures and algorithms in
> ruby or Have I missed to notice them in the market. Can you please point
> me to good datasturctures and algorithms learning book using ruby.

Basically *any* good book on data structures and algorithms will do -
regardless of programming language used for examples.  Transferring
examples from one language to another is usually easy to do.  I never
grokked why Sedgewick wrote his algorithms books for all sorts of
programming languages.  Note, I am not saying they are bad - actually
I believe they are pretty good.  But I think he overdid it in terms of
programming languages.

With regard to lack of data structures, if you need a tree it can be as easy as

TreeNode = Struct.new :data, :left, :right, :parent do
  include Enumerable

  def each(&b)
    left and left.each(&b)
    b[data]
    right and right.each(&b)
    self
  end
end

But of course it depends on the use case how your tree will really
look like.  I don't think you'll gain much by including a generic tree
in the standard library because it is so easy to implement and you
need specific code for every real tree anyway.

Kind regards

robert

-- 
remember.guy do |as, often| as.you_can - without end
http://blog.rubybestpractices.com/