Talk:Topological sort/Extracted top item

Reasons for draft status

I think it is worthwhile as this task extracts and orders just those items necessary to compile a given top level whereas Topological sort would order everything. Hopefully you do too? --Paddy3118 19:48, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

This seems like a variation on a theme. But I have to ask if my current J implementation satisfies your intent for what you wanted displayed? (If not, could you update the task description with whatever additional requirements?) --Rdm 16:56, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Yep, it is a variation on a theme, but during development, it could be that all items could not be compiled but the items for one particular top level might be compilable. Extracting and compiling just the items for a particular top level allows work to continue. It looks as if the J output is OK. --Paddy3118 20:38, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

When I first saw this, it brought to mind code optimizations where a relaxation of complex ordering rules could reduce processing time, yet still provide results good enough to satisfy core requirements in problem context. I'll be watching with interest to see where specializations for this task crop up. --Michael Mol 20:46, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I spoke too soon. The J example needs to also extract the top levels. --Paddy3118 20:40, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

What does this mean? Do you want me to copy my argument that gives me the list of targets to the output, as an extra line? --Rdm 20:51, 13 October 2010 (UTC)