Years ago in a competitive programming contest, there was an interesting problem to calculate the number of days a bus runs in a given year and a given bus schedule. The bus schedule could contain things like, the bus only runs on weekends, or the bus only runs on weekdays that aren't holidays, or the bus only runs on holidays but including the observed holiday which is the weekday after the holiday if the original holiday falls on a weekend. You know things are intense when you are programming a computer to perform the Computus (calculation of the date of Easter).
Technologists thought, how easy it is. A year has only a few hundred days, and there are only a few dozen possible rules for buses. Brute force is enough.
Nobody got the problem right. It gave me a great appreciation for how complex when technology interacts with culture and customs, long before my professional career.
Technologists thought, how easy it is. A year has only a few hundred days, and there are only a few dozen possible rules for buses. Brute force is enough.
Nobody got the problem right. It gave me a great appreciation for how complex when technology interacts with culture and customs, long before my professional career.