Wikipedia:Peer review/Red-black tree/archive1

Red-black tree

I've recently made some expansions to this article detailing the complex insertion and deletion operations. It'd be helpful if someone who knows about red-black trees could help check for accuracy, and if other people could help with readability, clarity, and so on. Thanks. Derrick Coetzee 18:26, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• I've only had a chance to start looking at this article; I haven't combed through to check the individual sections for accuracy. I think it looks like a good reference, but that standing alone, the article is more appropriate to an algorithms book than an encyclopedia. The article started out very sharply; there were a few links to simpler topics, but no real explanations of background material, the motivation for creating red-black trees, why we are making the decisions we're making, or where red-black trees are used.

I tend to think that articles like this should start off with nontechnical material, and become more technical as the articles go on. A beginning section might want to expand on why red-black trees are important (they're used in filesystems, they're efficient at certain types of operations, etc.). Since the article is very technical, I think that information should go before a description of "what they are". The second section might loosely cover technical background material (with copious links). After that, the article could go into an intuitive description of red-black trees, and why they're more efficient. Lastly, you go into the algorithmic details.

With an article structured like that, if someone without enough technical background to understand the page comes across it, they can still gain something before they get lost. I really think that Wikipedia, since it's aimed somewhat at a general audience, gives us a great opportunity to communicate our intuitive understandings of technical terms, and move away some from the style of current textbooks (where you define something, and then explain what it is).

Anyway, I know I'm pretty verbose. I added a short "Background" section (I forgot to log in at the time, I'm afraid), and I'd be happy to give more specific comments, or discuss things, if you're interested. Good luck with this article, and have fun! -- Creidieki 06:08, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I know this might sound silly, in the insertions bit could you illustrate case 1 and case 2 with an diagram, like you've done for case 3? - Ta bu shi da yu 06:56, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• As for combing through for accuracy, if it's not already done by then, I intend to do so in some two weeks. (When my exams are over.) - Jolson 20:56, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)