Comment Euclid's Algorithm? (Score 2) 596
How on Earth could Euclid's algorithm be the most important CS algorithm? I'll be the first to say Euclid's algorithm is really cool (and I believe I did actually, two days ago on an unrelated matter), but how useful is it?
If we ignore for the moment the fact it isn't really CS at all, when was the last time you needed a GCD? Maybe I'm mathematically naive, but I can't think of one single use of a GCD. I'm sure there are plenty, but are there any outside of maths, physics, engineering, etc? Is there a general use of GCDs, like there is for say crypto or graphs?
Does a GCD have a use in writing an operating system, or a programming language? When was the last time you saw a gcd function provided to a programmer in a standard library?
If we ignore for the moment the fact it isn't really CS at all, when was the last time you needed a GCD? Maybe I'm mathematically naive, but I can't think of one single use of a GCD. I'm sure there are plenty, but are there any outside of maths, physics, engineering, etc? Is there a general use of GCDs, like there is for say crypto or graphs?
Does a GCD have a use in writing an operating system, or a programming language? When was the last time you saw a gcd function provided to a programmer in a standard library?
