Top "Theory" questions

Programming-language-agnostic Questions that focus on the theoretical aspects rather than the actual implementations.

Are there any O(1/n) algorithms?

Are there any O(1/n) algorithms? Or anything else which is less than O(1)?

theory complexity-theory big-o
How are hash functions like MD5 unique?

I'm aware that MD5 has had some collisions but this is more of a high-level question about hashing functions. If …

hash theory md5 uniqueidentifier
What is referential transparency?

What does the term referential transparency mean? I've heard it described as "it means you can replace equals with equals" …

functional-programming computer-science theory referential-transparency
Steps to creating an NFA from a regular expression

I'm having issues 'describing each step' when creating an NFA from a regular expression. The question is as follows: Convert …

theory compiler-theory nfa
What is starvation?

In multitasking systems, some abnormal conditions prevent progress of executing processes or threads. I'll refer to both processes and threads …

theory multitasking
How do streaming resources fit within the RESTful paradigm?

With a RESTful service you can create, read, update, and delete resources. This all works well when you're dealing with …

rest streaming theory
Explain the difference between a data *structure* and a data *type*

While trying to answer What is the difference between a composite data type and a data structure? I realized that …

data-structures language-agnostic theory
How to calculate function points

This is a question about theoretical computing. I have came through a question like below; Consider a project with the …

theory computation-theory function-points
Coupling and cohesion

I'm trying to boil down the concepts of coupling and cohesion to a concise definition. Can someone give me a …

oop architecture theory ooad
Big-O for Eight Year Olds?

I'm asking more about what this means to my code. I understand the concepts mathematically, I just have a hard …

algorithm theory big-o metrics