Name: The Resistance | Think Like A Coder, Ep 2
Uploaded: 2019-10-22T08:35:30.000Z
Duration: 6 min 10 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hedge flies them both towards  a frontier settlement

in the shadow of the Bradbarrier,  the great wall that encircles the nation.

All the settlers there will soon gather  for the monthly feeding.

The people of the wall spend their days  gathering up works of art and literature,

On feeding day, the furnace-bots arrive,  ravenous.

If they eat, the lights stay on,  and the food gets delivered.

Hedge's fuel supply runs out just as he  and Ethic reach the outskirts of town,

Luckily, everyone is too busy preparing  for the feeding to notice.

Today's feeding is where Ethic  can find the leader

This person knows the location of the  first of three powerful artifacts.

The problem is, Hedge and  Ethic don't know

the resistance leader's name  or appearance.

But Hedge has gathered the  following information:

If the leader has red hair, their name has at least one consecutive double letter.

If the leader wear glasses,  their name has exactly 2 vowels.

Otherwise, their name has  exactly 3 vowels.

There is exactly one person for whom  these are all true.

Ethic can't sneak into the crowd without  drawing attention to herself.

And one tool she has is what  programmers call a conditional.

That's a statement of the form  “If A, then B.”

Flowcharts are great illustrations  of how those work.

This conditional translates to:  if A is true, carry out instruction B.

There are also conditionals that account  for different possibilities.

This says, “If A is true, perform  instruction B.

So what instructions does she give Hedge  so he can find the resistance leader?

With a problem like this,  it can help to simplify first.

What if Hedge just has to examine  this one person?

What information does he need  to collect about her?

He might ask, “Does she have green eyes?”

What other questions should Hedge  ask to find the resistance leader,

It may seem intuitive how you'd approach  this problem as a human.

and so the challenge comes from needing  to give him systematic instructions

Hedge needs to examine the settlers,  one at a time,

In other words, like with the  lock on the prison cell,

this is a loop that repeats the  same instructions.

Only this time the loop will involve  a series of questions

and will end as soon as Hedge  finds his target.

But first, you'll want to organize  your information.

Each person has a set of characteristics:  Eye color, hair color, glasses, and name.

If so, mark a check next to “eye color."  If not, mark an X there.

If they have red hair, does their  name contain a double letter?

If so, mark a check next to “hair color.”

If they don't have a double letter,  mark an X next to “hair color.”

Anyone with red hair and no double  letter can't be the resistance leader.

Hedge will skip this question and  go on to the next one.

“If they wear glasses, does their name  have exactly 2 vowels?

If they don't have glasses, does their  name have exactly 3 vowels?”

There will be people in the crowd with  glasses and 1 vowel,

But they're not who we're looking for,  so they'll get X's.

The resistance leader must be someone  with either check marks

Blanks are ok, because if someone  has blue hair,

the rule about red hair doesn't  apply to them.

You could have Hedge ask every question  about every person,

and then choose the person with  only checks and blanks.

But there's a way to save yourself lots  of time: as soon as Hedge marks an X,

You don't need to know the answer  to every question;

just one X means they're not the target  of your search.

and within minutes finds Adila,  the resistance leader,

Adila agrees to help them steal the first  artifact— the node of power—

that Ethic and Hedge jump-start  the revolution

by reprogramming the furnace-bots  that terrorize the town.

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The Resistance | Think Like A Coder, Ep 2

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