[sgrove]

I had someone ask me the cycle detection question once, and I didn't care for how they phrased it. Specifically, should I find it immediately upon entering the first cycle (at a higher memory/time cost) or should I just eventually detect it (e.g. turtle/rabbit)? It was on me to clarify, but as a newb to the industry, I felt like I should just know which was expected.

And either way, if I were to ask this question, I would spend a lot of time helping the person along the way to make sure they were able to make the logical leaps that made sense to them, not to me.

[stcredzero]

Here's how I asked the question. I would present the data for a 2 node cycle and ask what would happen to this routine. Here's a response I would get far too often: A conditional clause detecting a 2 node cycle. Then I would present a 3 node cycle, then ask how to detect an n node cycle, period.

Lots of 3.5+ GPA grads can't make that logical leap!