• Saganaki@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    Serious question: Is “Directed Acyclical Graph” really an unknown term for people? The author harped on it pretty hard, but what it is…is pretty apparent, no? I mean, I’ve encountered the term often, but I don’t think I had any need to look it up…

    • meanmon13@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      I’m a computer engineer with more than a decade of development experience with embedded systems… I use C/C++/python everyday and “Directed Acyclical Graph” is never mentioned by name, no one in my experience says make me a DAG. Hell, I had to look it up when I read your comment and went “oh that’s what those are called”. I use em to show relationships between states or to descide a system that is best diagramed using a DAG. Do I or anyone I’ve talked to in my career call them DAG… lol no.

    • expr@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      It’s very well-known and common knowledge. It’s certainly something that I will talk about without feeling the need to define terms or something. I would assume anyone unfamiliar with it either didn’t pay attention in school or never went to school to begin with.

        • the_sisko@startrek.website
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          1 year ago

          They probably know what it is, but it’s a bad point if they’re trying to paint DAGs as esoteric CS stuff for the average programmer. I needed to use a topological sort for work coding 2 weeks ago, and any time you’re using a build system, even as simple as Make, you’re using DAGs. Acting like it’s a tough concept makes me wonder why I should accept the rest of the argument.

          Can’t say I have a strong feeling about Gradle though 🤷‍♀️

      • whatsarefoogee@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Agreed. Why would a person need to look it up when the name literally describes it. Directed? Means connections are in a single direction. Acyclic? A-cyclic = non-cyclical, doesn’t have cycles. Graph is… well a graph.

        Which part does the author think an average programmer should struggle with?