Arrrrgh!
El Presidente's been looking into MySQL, and we were chatting about searching and sorting techniques. In MySQL, I gather, you can specify one of a number of data structures and algorithms to be used for a given index. One of those available is a 'btree', which I assumed to be binary tree.
I dug out Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming, Volume 3, Sorting and Searching, (As much to scare El P as anything else - it's not like I understand it). El P asked what a Fibonaccian search is.
I haven't got any idea. Hey, I write accounting packages! But like anyone who's gone through primary school, I know what the Fibonacci Numbers are.
"Hey, I know that," piped up Tulna, "That's from The Da Vinci Code!"
Arrrrgh! Arrrrgh! Arrrrgh! What is it about that book that irritates me so much?
Perhaps it's the fact that I wasted a good few hours reading it. "Hey", I thought, "all those hundreds of people that I've seen reading it on the train can't be wrong. It must be good."
Wrong. It's dreadful. It reads like Jeffrey Archer's take on Holy Blood, Holy Grail.
If you want to read a good novel about the Templars, the Illuminati and so on, pick up Umberto Eco's Foucault’s Pendulum instead.
Posted to Rants by Simon Brunning at January 05, 2005 03:50 PMFunny, the more people on the train I see reading something, the crappier I think it must be.
Like The Metro for example. :-)
You're quite right. I should know better. I will in future.
Posted by: Simon Brunning on January 5, 2005 03:59 PMNow that's unfair. I have two maths A levels under my belt and I had never heard of the Fibonacci progression until I read the Da Vinci Code.
But I have read Foucault's Pendulum and wonderful though I think it is, it is bloody hard going sometimes. I am a fan of Umberto Eco - he is clearly a man with an enormous brain - but not always suitable for your tube journey. And there isn't anything in there about the Da Vinci paintings, some of which is pretty darn interesting. So ner.
Oh, and the Knights Templar suck. And are dull. And don't exist. What is this obsession with them?
Posted by: Katherine on January 5, 2005 05:57 PMTo summarise my opinions on the Da Vinci Code - interesting ideas, abysmal plotting, less than one dimensional characters and worse English than my eighteen month old son.
I too, wanted to know where I was going to get those hours of my life back that I wasted reading it. Braver people than I who have dipped into his other works tell me they are just as bad.
So the first writers against the wall come the revolution are now; Jeffrey Archer, Jack Higgins and Dan Brown.
Oh, and of course, JRRRRRRR Tolkien if he was still alive. My god that trilogy is rubbish.
Posted by: Andy Todd on January 5, 2005 09:56 PMMore importantly, where is your implementation of a fibonacci search in Python?
Posted by: Andy Todd on January 5, 2005 10:02 PMOoh, spooky, the Grauniad has been talking to the Knights Templar, somewhere under Threshers apparently;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,2763,1382899,00.html
Posted by: Andy Todd on January 5, 2005 10:42 PMTwo maths A levels, Kaherine, and you'd never heard of the Fibonacci series? *Scary*...
Sorry, Andy, but I'll have to stick up for Tolkien. I fell in love with his work at eleven, and yopu never quite get over that. I can see some of the faults in his work now, but it's still wonderfully evocative and escapist. Original, too, at the time, though there have been about a million sub-Tolkien hacks since.
Posted by: Simon Brunning on January 6, 2005 10:48 AMI do have to agree with Andy's assessment of the plot and characterisation though. But pulpy is pulpy, so there you go. I'd say he must have spent all his energy researching it rather than writing it, except that I've heard rumours that he nicked some of that too.
Also, there was a programme over Christmas on Channel 4 I think called 'The Real Da Vinci Code' with Tony Robinson examining the claims to reality in the book, but I missed it. Did anyone see it or eve, gulp, tape it?
Posted by: Katherine on January 6, 2005 11:30 AMErr why did you get two maths A levels?
Would you not have noticed that the questions seemed familiar the second time round?
sorry for the sudden post, just enjoying reading
For Paul Brian, there is a 'Further Maths' A level - i.e. harder than the first one.
Posted by: Katherine on January 10, 2005 10:03 AM