>>Realistically speaking, our profession is not a rocket science so it's beyond common sense to assume that something could be invented by the only person. One may claim that s/he got some idea independently, but it doesn't mean that others stole it.
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>Yes, definitely not a rocket science. And the more I work as a programmer the more I see it as a cut and paste job... There are not that many interesting problems in the field.
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>Yesterday, though, Robin brought an interesting problem. I don't think it's a good idea to solve it in VFP, though could be solved in any language since algorithms are well known.

I remember doing something similar while in college. It could be time-consuming (in case of many iteration levels), but the algorithm itself (if by distance only) should be simple enough.