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Why are most priority/heap queues implemented as 0 being the highest priority? I’m assuming I’m missing out some key mathematical principle. As I was implementing my own priority queue recently it seemed easier to write the insert function if priority went up with the integer value, but apparently people smarter than me think it should go the other way.
Any ideas?
Most priority queues are implemented as a fibonacci heap or something similar. That data structure supports extracting the minimum in constant time, which makes it natural to make 0 the highest priority, and take elements out of the queue by extracting the minimum.