Reading maps from .map files

[alexti]

Arralen said:
Alexti, I think you're missing the point. Someone who is an experienced programmer, maybe software engineer or with an degree in computer science or something, will have little trouble understanding what those libraries do, and how to use them.

Then think of a novice:

He isn't exactly a novice. Didn't he wrote some tools for Dom2? Anyway, if the primary idea is to learn some basics of the language and not to solve the problem of finding the "areas", it doesn't matter which algorithm to use.

Arralen said:
The concept of OO-programming (C++, Java) is new to him,

I think that concept of OO-programming can be new only to old-school programmers Meaning that C++ (and Java, to some extent) concepts match modelling languages almost exactly, so the step of converting the model into procedures is effectively removed.

Arralen said:
And we're talking about a real thin sheet of paper: 100-300 provinces (nodes) at best, with less than 750 interconnects.
A short script will really do.

I wouldn't be so optimistic. For example, check http://domino.research.ibm.com/Comm/...arch2005.html. Just 6x6x6 cube with 2 possible values in a cell and its way beyond the computing power of modern computers.

Getting back to our particular task, the simple algorithm that would check for chokepoints would apparently have to verify if the graph is connected for each single and pair of nodes, which for province with N=200 nodes gives you about O(N^2)=40000 verifications for graph connectivity. And checking graph connectivity is not particularly fast operation. It may or may not be a problem, it's kind of estimation, where you can't say for sure without actual test. So to avoid frustration of discovering that your nicely written program can't handle large maps in reasonable time it may be better to look up for more efficient solutions from the start.

Of course, all this doesn't matter if the primary goal is to learn programming.