blog :: Brent -> [String] - Competitive Programming in Haskell: Union-Find
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  • NoughtmareOPEnglish
    1·
    2 days ago

    Also, I think the ‘find’ operation could be replaced by an operation that checks if two elements are in the same set. That way you don’t have to come up with a “name”.

  • NoughtmareOPEnglish
    1·
    2 days ago

    One thing I’m missing is which problems this technique can solve. I believe one important use case is in type inference. Are there many other problems that can be solved by union-find?

    • solrize@lemmy.world
      2·
      2 days ago

      The Wikipedia article discusses some applications. One amazing thing I remembered about the algorithm is its running time, which is infinitesimally slower than linear, by which I mean that the growth factor above linear is the inverse Ackermann function! I’ve never studied the analysis but I found the result to be mind boggling.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disjoint-set_data_structure

      • NoughtmareOPEnglish
        1·
        1 day ago

        Thanks, I did look at the Wikipedia page, but the Applications section is pretty difficult to read. The applications it lists are themselves quite abstract problems.