Algorithms

Algorithms always get my juices flowing. As long as I can remember, I've always been down with them.I distinctly remember reading Dr. Dobb's Journal -- reading Algorithm Alley -- looking for what was coming up next. Looking for something new to learn.Sure... most of the normal crap is dealing with arrays or has tables... maybe a linked list thrown in for spice. But then you get to talking about skip-lists with all their probabilistic quirks or maybe a variant of a balanced tree and walking the line between speed of insert vs. speed of access.Good shit, lemme tell ya.Then you get into building new stuff. I know I mentioned this with my series of posts on Conway's game of Life from a long while back.The moment someone says something is "impossible" the next reaction needs to be "well, prove that it's impossible... better yet, make it possible dammit."There's something about the purity of logic in computer science (and, well, logic) that makes it feel like a warm blanket out of the dryer for me.