The Hunt for the Missing Data Type
A (directed) graph is a set of nodes, connected by arrows (edges). The nodes and edges may contain data. Here are some graphs: All graphs made with graphviz (source) Graphs are ubiquitous in software engineering: Package dependencies form directed graphs, as do module imports. The internet is a grap...
Hasnain says:
"So, the reasons we don’t have widespread graph support:
* There are many different kinds of graphs
* There are many different representations of each kind of graph
* There are many different graph algorithms
* Graph algorithm performance is very sensitive to graph representation and implementation details
* People run very expensive algorithms on very big graphs.
This explains why languages don’t support graphs in their standard libraries: too many design decisions, too many tradeoffs, and too much maintenance burden. It explains why programmers might avoid third party graph libraries, because they’re either too limited or too slow. And it explains why programmers might not want to think about things in terms of graphs except in extreme circumstances: it’s just too hard to work with them."
Posted on 2024-05-28T03:20:23+0000