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I make lots of mistakes (No 3)

 
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...and trade‑offs. I presume you are trading off time complexity against space complexity. Is it ever worth trading off accuracy?
 
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I haven't read the book, but there are certainly other dimensions to trade off in addition to time and space. How about
  • Legibility of code
  • Usability
  • API Complexity
  • Testing
  • Longevity
  • Documentation
  • Energy and resource use
  • etc.

  • Software development consists almost entirely of decisions and trade-offs. The trouble is that in many cases the people making these choices don't even realise.
     
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    Each chapter tries to focus on a different set of trade-offs; for example, in chapter 1, you will find trade-offs between flexibility and the cost of the potential of bugs and the evolution of your code.
    Chapter 10 discussed trade-offs between consistency and atomicity in your systems. Chapter 6 focuses on Simplicity vs. the cost of maintenance for your API.
     
    Frank Carver
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    Tomasz Lelek wrote:Each chapter tries to focus on a different set of trade-offs; for example, in chapter 1, you will find trade-offs between flexibility and the cost of the potential of bugs and the evolution of your code.
    Chapter 10 discussed trade-offs between consistency and atomicity in your systems. Chapter 6 focuses on Simplicity vs. the cost of maintenance for your API.



    I find it interesting that these are all in the domain of the software development process itself.

    There is, I think, another important trade off between ease/cost/simplicity of development and the cost/environmental impact of the deployed system.

    As some examples...
  • Building a system with a pleasant and effective user interface which generates static files for a website is usually more software development effort than building a dynamic application, but can be much faster and use less energy and need fewer servers when deployed.
  • You might want to write an embedded application in Java, say, but writing it in C might mean you can get away with a $1 microcontroller rather than a "proper" computer costing a hundred times as much and using at least ten times the power.
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    Campbell Ritchie wrote:...and trade‑offs. I presume you are trading off time complexity against space complexity. Is it ever worth trading off accuracy?

    Close enough for government work.
     
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