Programmer tries to explain binary search to the police

The Picard Maneuver@startrek.website to Programmer Humor@programming.dev – 2488 points –
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Honestly you probably do it already without thinking about it when trying to figure out where you left off a video that you never paused.

Or if you ever had VHS tapes, or so e from of disc media... perhaps a cassette when looking for a particular part of a song.

Maybe not as methodical as perfectly breaking it down into halves of halves, but xlos enough to help you pin point what part you are looking for.

I'm pretty sure they were using sarcasm.

I'm pretty sure I was serious. I don't know how people can be that clever. It seems simple once it's explained, sure, but I wouldn't be able to come up with that on my own without someone else giving me a problem that points me in that direction.

Studied this in computer science algorithms class waaaaayyy back in 1996 and by golly this one stuck with me. It's so simple and so effective.