From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Drew Adams" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: RE: Copy/paste issue. Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2012 09:03:54 -0700 Message-ID: <3D650C3DE8AA48B295938542E346EB72@us.oracle.com> References: Your message of Sat, 31 Mar 2012 08:14:01 -0700 <20120331154408.40E7F180CAB@neo.msri.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1333209854 28435 80.91.229.3 (31 Mar 2012 16:04:14 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2012 16:04:14 +0000 (UTC) Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org To: Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Mar 31 18:04:13 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1SE0mj-0003tI-JE for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 31 Mar 2012 18:04:13 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:56794 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SE0mi-0005z1-VO for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 31 Mar 2012 12:04:12 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.92]:53684) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SE0me-0005yt-5T for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 31 Mar 2012 12:04:09 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SE0mc-00051z-DQ for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 31 Mar 2012 12:04:07 -0400 Original-Received: from rcsinet15.oracle.com ([148.87.113.117]:39905) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SE0mc-00051h-6e for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 31 Mar 2012 12:04:06 -0400 Original-Received: from acsinet21.oracle.com (acsinet21.oracle.com [141.146.126.237]) by rcsinet15.oracle.com (Sentrion-MTA-4.2.2/Sentrion-MTA-4.2.2) with ESMTP id q2VG420v021647 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=OK); Sat, 31 Mar 2012 16:04:03 GMT Original-Received: from acsmt358.oracle.com (acsmt358.oracle.com [141.146.40.158]) by acsinet21.oracle.com (8.14.4+Sun/8.14.4) with ESMTP id q2VG42Ts008056 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Sat, 31 Mar 2012 16:04:02 GMT Original-Received: from abhmt114.oracle.com (abhmt114.oracle.com [141.146.116.66]) by acsmt358.oracle.com (8.12.11.20060308/8.12.11) with ESMTP id q2VG41aP030724; Sat, 31 Mar 2012 11:04:01 -0500 Original-Received: from dradamslap1 (/10.159.47.251) by default (Oracle Beehive Gateway v4.0) with ESMTP ; Sat, 31 Mar 2012 09:04:01 -0700 X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook 11 In-Reply-To: <20120331154408.40E7F180CAB@neo.msri.org> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.6157 Thread-Index: Ac0PVR76HuIaLES1Sk2IHJ8FTm4tBQAANHhA X-Source-IP: acsinet21.oracle.com [141.146.126.237] X-CT-RefId: str=0001.0A090206.4F772AF3.0073,ss=1,re=0.000,fgs=0 X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 1) X-Received-From: 148.87.113.117 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:84231 Archived-At: > In my experience binary search, while sometimes unavoidable, is far > from logarithmic, because the contents interact with each other. > > At the simplest level, cutting a file in half typically cuts it in the > middle of a function. Even if the functions are short and it's easy to > break between functions, the remaining code may depend on the omitted > code, so the division introduces new errors that have to be debugged. Well, yes of course, one must not use it blindly or measure "halves" so literally. The point is that Jerome's 5000 lines of code in 24 libraries is not an obstacle but should rather be an inducement to using binary search. And yes of course, nothing prohibits adding a little knowledge and reasoning into the mix. If you can be fairly certain for some reason that some of the loaded code cannot be the culprit, then leave it out of the search space. (But as we all know, sometimes what we think is certain is not.) FWIW - The code that I load in my own Emacs setup is far beyond Jerome's 5000 lines and 24 Lisp files. And yes, I try to think before (and during) binary-searching, to narrow the search space. I nevertheless surprise myself periodically by the weakness of my thinking and the strength of binary search. YMMV.