When implementing algorithms, prioritize computational efficiency by selecting appropriate data structures and avoiding unnecessarily complex approaches. Consider the time complexity of your solution and whether built-in functions or better data structures could improve performance.
Key principles:
Examples of improvements:
Instead of manual exception handling for early exit:
(* Avoid *)
try
List.fold_left (fun _ x ->
if condition x then raise (Found x)) () lst
with Found x -> Some x
(* Prefer *)
List.find_opt condition lst
Instead of manual folding for set operations:
(* Avoid *)
List.fold_left (fun acc m -> StringSet.add m.path acc) StringSet.empty matches
(* Prefer *)
matches |> List.map (fun m -> m.path) |> Set_.of_list
Instead of expensive equality comparisons:
(* Avoid *)
let a_json = a |> to_json |> to_string in
let b_json = b |> to_json |> to_string in
String.equal a_json b_json
(* Prefer *)
Common2.on String.equal extract_key a b
When dealing with potentially large datasets, document the time complexity and consider whether O(N²) algorithms need optimization. For stack-intensive operations, prefer iterative approaches or tail-recursive functions to avoid stack overflow issues.
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