Summary: PREPRINT. Theoretical Computer Science, 106:391­393, 1992.
Letter to the Editor:
Comments on ``On the Balance Property of Patricia
Tries: External Path Length Viewpoint''
Arne Andersson
Department of Computer Science
Lund University
Sweden
email: arne@dna.lth.se
The method of analyzing data structures and algorithms by assuming that
the treated items are randomly and independently drawn from some kind of
distribution, known or unknown, is widely used among computer scientists.
Although real­world data are very seldom generated this way, such analysis
gives a lot of help in understanding the behaviour of the algorithms and,
therefore, it is well motivated. However, some care has to be taken when
conclusions are drawn from the analysis.
In the paper ``On the Balance Property of Patricia Tries: External Path
Length Viewpoint'' by Kirschenhofer, Prodinger, and Szpankowski, Theo­
retical Computer Science Volume 68, Number 1, it is argued that from a
practical point of view the average case behaviour of a data structure is

Source: Andersson, Arne - Department of Information Technology, Uppsala Universitet

Collections: Computer Technologies and Information Sciences