Re: Re: Nested data structures... nasty?

You said:

Now, a five dimensional partition tree using epsilon nets, with associated k-d trees in the nodes, that's a complex datastructure.

Seems arbitrary to me. How about 4 dimensional? Or 3 dimensional using red-black trees? Or AVL trees? Where in particular do you draw the line in the data structure sand that says complex on this side, everything else on that side? I'm not saying that complex data structures don't exist, I'm just wondering about how you distinguish complex from not complex...

–hsm

"Never try to teach a pig to sing…it wastes your time and it annoys the pig."

Comment on Re: Re: Nested data structures... nasty?

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Re: Nested data structures... nasty? by Abigail-II (Bishop) on May 29, 2002 at 09:17 UTC
I'm just wondering about how you distinguish complex from not complex. Well, I don't think it's possible to draw a sharp border. Just as it's almost impossible to draw the line when you call it "light" or "dark". That doesn't mean that in a lot of cases, it's clear when it's "light" or "dark". ;-) Anyway, for me, to call a datastructure complex it usually satisfies these points: It stores elements where the place in the structure implies (or is implied by) a (spacial) relationship between the elements. It's optimized such that queries and/or updates can be done in less time than a full scan, or a rebuild of the entire datastructure. It will often have some kind of associated datastructure. But I don't apply the rules very strict. Abigail	[reply]

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Re: Nested data structures... nasty?
by Abigail-II (Bishop) on May 29, 2002 at 09:17 UTC

I'm just wondering about how you distinguish complex from not complex.

Well, I don't think it's possible to draw a sharp border. Just as it's almost impossible to draw the line when you call it "light" or "dark". That doesn't mean that in a lot of cases, it's clear when it's "light" or "dark". ;-)

Anyway, for me, to call a datastructure complex it usually satisfies these points:

It stores elements where the place in the structure implies (or is implied by) a (spacial) relationship between the elements.
It's optimized such that queries and/or updates can be done in less time than a full scan, or a rebuild of the entire datastructure.
It will often have some kind of associated datastructure.

Abigail

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