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Re: Splitting of string at an interval

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On Apr 8, 2013, at 11:10 AM, Arnaud Delobelle wrote:

> On 8 April 2013 14:21, Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> wrote:
> 
>> For a while, I was rabidly(*) into TDD (Test Driven Development).  The
>> cycle I was using was, "Write a specification of a behavior, write a
>> (failing) test for that behavior, then write the least possible amount
>> of code to make the test pass.  Lather, Rinse, Repeat, Ship"
>> 
>> The "least possible" part is important.  It makes sure the cycles stay
>> short (ideally, just a few minutes), and that you don't write any code
>> for which you don't have tests.
> 
> The least amount of code is often also not the best in terms of time
> or space complexity.  Does this mean you have to write tests for time
> and space complexity as well?  That's interesting, but I don't know of
> tools to help do that (time complexity seems easy enough, but space
> complexity seems tougher to me).


If space and time complexity are important, then you need to write a test for those things.  If you have no test for them, then it's not important and you shouldn't worry about it.  At least according to the TDD catechism :-)

From a somewhat less radical point of view, the first thing you want to do is get the code to produce correct results.  Once you've got that (and a fully comprehensive test suite to prove it), then you can move on to making it more efficient, and your test suite serves as protection against behavior regressions.

And, yes, I agree that testing for time and space complexity are not trivial, because making accurate, repeatable, and isolated measurements of those things is often surprisingly complicated.  I can't help point out, however, that if your initial implementation is to have your code return a constant, it's pretty likely to be an optimum solution in both time and space :-)

---
Roy Smith
roy@panix.com

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Splitting of string at an interval subhabangalore@gmail.com - 2013-04-07 13:25 -0700
  Re: Splitting of string at an interval Dave Angel <davea@davea.name> - 2013-04-07 16:46 -0400
  Re: Splitting of string at an interval Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2013-04-07 21:48 +0000
    Re: Splitting of string at an interval Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-04-08 13:01 +1000
      Re: Splitting of string at an interval Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2013-04-08 09:21 -0400
        Re: Splitting of string at an interval Arnaud Delobelle <arnodel@gmail.com> - 2013-04-08 16:10 +0100
        Re: Splitting of string at an interval Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2013-04-08 11:37 -0400
        Re: Splitting of string at an interval Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-04-09 02:20 +1000
        Re: Splitting of string at an interval Arnaud Delobelle <arnodel@gmail.com> - 2013-04-08 17:30 +0100
          Re: Splitting of string at an interval Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2013-04-08 21:09 -0400
            Re: Splitting of string at an interval Tim Chase <python.list@tim.thechases.com> - 2013-04-08 20:42 -0500
            Re: Splitting of string at an interval Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2013-04-09 02:38 +0000
              Re: Splitting of string at an interval Andrew Berg <bahamutzero8825@gmail.com> - 2013-04-08 21:57 -0500
              Re: Splitting of string at an interval Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-04-09 14:22 +1000
              Re: Splitting of string at an interval Dave Angel <davea@davea.name> - 2013-04-09 02:28 -0400
        Re: Splitting of string at an interval Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> - 2013-04-08 19:15 -0400

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