Talk:Priority queue

Refinement

This draft task needs more work. In particular, it needs something for people to actually do with the priority queue; just instantiating it isn't enough! What about sorting a bunch of tasks? Here's a possible set, sorted alphabetically by task name:

Priority    Task
  3        Clear drains
  4        Feed cat
  5        Make tea
  1        Solve RC tasks
  2        Tax return

This is just a suggestion, but it shows the value of these sorts of structures. –Donal Fellows 08:09, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I did put a test case in the draft, the add-then-dequeue sorting thingy, if somewhat vague. I don't know if using a very small sample test case like this is a good idea, since priority queue is often used in performance critical areas like process/IO schedulers, while a small test case tend to encourage inefficient solutions--won't be long before we see someone implement O(n^2) insertion times. Your task priorities are pretty good, though. --Ledrug 08:22, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi guys, it's very difficult for RC to tackle efficiency in execution time except by suggesting one or more algorithms to use. Some languages might be justified in using an easy to implement algo, rather than a longer, more efficient one as they would never be used where their solutions speed would be the issue.

+1 on the idea of a small sort example like the above. --Paddy3118 10:26, 4 August 2011 (UTC)