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)

Given the definition of a top level file and the dependencies, extrat the top levels from the dependencies according to those rules. --Paddy3118 15:45, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I am sorry, but I am still not understanding you. So, I am going to ask some questions whose answers, I hope, will help me understand what you are getting at: What do you mean by "extract"? How would my result be any different than what it currently is? What part of the task specification have I failed to satisfy? Thanks! --Rdm 16:05, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I have finally noticed the line in the python display which reads: "The top levels of the dependency graph are: top2 top1". But please note that the current task description does not ask for this to be displayed, and (I do represent this information internally, in the J implementation). Also, as near as I can tell, identification of the top levels is completely independent from displaying the compile order (it will be the same regardless of which files we are compiling). That said, if you are willing to update the task to ask that this be displayed, I will update my J implementation to display it. --Rdm 16:12, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Specifically: the top levels are identified by (+./<+./"1)depends after depends gets calculated and before the while loop where I destroy it. And the names of the top levels would be names#~(+./<+./"1)depends, and I could format and display them. However, with my current implementation, this would get displayed every time I asked for a compile order (so it would be repeated 3 times for the three current examples). --Rdm 16:29, 14 October 2010 (UTC)