When a Tree Degenerates Into a List
Last timeA Sorted List You Can Change
The shape of a search tree is decided by the order items arrive in, and the most ordinary arrival order of all, already sorted, turns it into a chain with no halving left.
The last lesson ended with a tree forty deep where the arithmetic promised
twenty. This lesson is about why, and about the much worse case hiding behind
it.
The lesson stops here
1 more paragraph to go
You have read the opening. The rest of the argument, the problems that check whether it landed, and the lines worth keeping at the end all come with a plan.
The first lesson of every course in the library reads the whole way through, free, so you can see exactly what the rest of them are.
See the planThe contentsThis is the reading half
Starting the course gives you your own copy of it. Every idea on every page has problems standing under it, marked with a reason rather than a tick, and any sentence you do not believe can be opened and argued with. None of that can happen on a page nobody owns.
The contents