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Four Solutions to a Trivial Problem - Guy Steele Jr.

Google TechTalks · talk · Watch on YouTube

Algorithms & data structuresFunctional programming

What it is

Guy Steele presents a small geometric problem and compares four computational approaches: a classic sequential solution and three parallel-friendly ones. Each is illustrated pictorially and with working code, weighing total work against time to solution.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN points to it as a clear lesson that algebraic properties like associativity unlock parallelism, applicable in any language.

  • 4 people recommended it
  • 4 different months
  • 1 strong recommendations
  • first 2017, last 2023

What HN commenters said

  1. “watch Guy Steele's talks [1][2][3] if you are interested in data parallelism!”

    Guy Steele's talks on data parallelism apply in any language

    tkf, 2020-10 · Strong recommendation · in “A quick introduction to data parallelism in Julia”

  2. “I enjoyed this talk along the same lines by Guy Steele, regarding not necessarily forcing a sequential solution to a non-sequential problem”

    Avoid forcing sequential solutions; exploit commutative and associative steps for parallelism

    platz, 2018-08 · Recommendation · in “Organizing Functional Code for Parallel Execution (2009) [video]”

  3. “Guy Steele gave an incredibly interesting guest talk[1] at google about four different ways to solve this exact problem”

    Guy Steele's talk on four ways to solve one problem

    heleninboodler, 2022-09 · Recommendation · in “Someone is pretending to be me”

  4. “There are a few good talks that he gives”

    Guy Steele Jr. toy-problem talk among his good talks

    MathMonkeyMan, 2023-07 · Recommendation · in “Coroutines for Go”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: parallelism, associativity, functional programming, guy steele, algorithms

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