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A young computer scientist and two colleagues show that searches within data structures called hash tables can be much faster than previously deemed possible. (www.quantamagazine.org)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

I wrote my comment not to antagonize you but to point out that you're asking the wrong questions. I failed to articulate that, and I'm sorry for being harsh.

Your prior comment indicated that you have used hash tables in Java, which were very fast. You said that your program accessed the hash tables, but did not "search" the table. These operations are the same thing, which led me to believe you're out of your depth.

This last comment asks me how much this paper's contribution speeds up an average program. You're asking the wrong question, and you seem to be implying the work was useless if it doesn't have an immediate practical impact. This is a theoretical breakthrough far over my head. I scanned the paper, but I'm unsurprised they haven't quantified the real-world impact yet. It's entirely possible that despite finding an asymptotic improvement, the constant factors (elided by the big O analysis) are so large as to be impractical... or maybe not! I think we need to stay tuned.

Again, sorry for being blunt. We all have to start somewhere. My advice is to be mindful of where the edge of your expertise lies and try to err on the side of not devaluing others' work.