On Feb 6, 4:54 pm, "John Machin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Recursive? Bzzzt!
I woudl be happy to hear your alternative, which doesn't depend on language specific tricks. Thus far, all you have suggested is using an alternative form of the division function, which I would consider to be outside the spirit of the question (though I have been wrong many times before). > Might it not be better to halve the interval at each iteration instead > of calling a random number function? mid = (lo + hi) >> 1 looks > permitted and cheap to me. Also you don't run the risk of it taking a > very high number of iterations to get a result. I had considered this, but to halve, you need to divide by 2. Using random, while potentially increasing the number of iterations, removes the dependency of language tricks and division. > Did you notice the important word *efficiently* in line 1 of the spec? > Even after ripping out recursion and random numbers, your proposed > solution is still way off the pace. Again, I look forward to reading your solution. Respectfully, G. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
