►zthomae’s SICP solutions
▼3 Chapter 3
3.1 Exercise 3.1
3.2 Exercise 3.2
3.3 Exercise 3.3
3.4 Exercise 3.4
3.5 Exercise 3.5
3.6 Exercise 3.6
3.7 Exercise 3.7
3.8 Exercise 3.8
3.9 Exercise 3.9
3.10 Exercise 3.10
3.11 Exercise 3.11
3.12 Exercise 3.12
3.13 Exercise 3.13
3.14 Exercise 3.14
3.15 Exercise 3.15
3.16 Exercise 3.16
3.17 Exercise 3.17
3.18 Exercise 3.18
3.19 Exercise 3.19
3.20 Exercise 3.20
3.21 Exercise 3.21
3.22 Exercise 3.22
3.23 Exercise 3.23
3.24 Exercise 3.24
3.25 Exercise 3.25
3.26 Exercise 3.26
3.27 Exercise 3.27
3.28 Exercise 3.28
3.29 Exercise 3.29
3.30 Exercise 3.30
3.31 Exercise 3.31
3.32 Exercise 3.32
3.33 Exercise 3.33
3.34 Exercise 3.34
3.35 Exercise 3.35
3.36 Exercise 3.36
3.37 Exercise 3.37
3.38 Exercise 3.38
3.39 Exercise 3.39
3.40 Exercise 3.40
3.41 Exercise 3.41
3.42 Exercise 3.42
3.43 Exercise 3.43
3.44 Exercise 3.44
3.45 Exercise 3.45
3.46 Exercise 3.46
3.47 Exercise 3.47
3.48 Exercise 3.48
3.49 Exercise 3.49
3.50 Exercise 3.50
3.51 Exercise 3.51
3.52 Exercise 3.52
3.53 Exercise 3.53
3.54 Exercise 3.54
3.55 Exercise 3.55
3.56 Exercise 3.56
3.57 Exercise 3.57
3.58 Exercise 3.58
3.59 Exercise 3.59
3.60 Exercise 3.60
3.61 Exercise 3.61
3.62 Exercise 3.62
3.63 Exercise 3.63
3.64 Exercise 3.64
3.65 Exercise 3.65
3.66 Exercise 3.66
3.67 Exercise 3.67
3.68 Exercise 3.68
3.69 Exercise 3.69
3.70 Exercise 3.70
3.71 Exercise 3.71
3.72 Exercise 3.72
3.73 Exercise 3.73
3.74 Exercise 3.74
3.75 Exercise 3.75
3.76 Exercise 3.76
3.77 Exercise 3.77
3.78 Exercise 3.78
3.79 Exercise 3.79
3.80 Exercise 3.80
3.81 Exercise 3.81
3.82 Exercise 3.82
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3.38 Exercise 3.38

If the transactions must run sequentially in some order, then we can enumerate all of these orderings to find all of the possible values of balance. Better yet, we can write a program to do it for us.

(define (peter balance) (+ balance 10))
(define (paul balance) (- balance 20))
(define (mary balance) (- balance (/ balance 2)))
(define permutations
  (list
   (list peter paul mary)
   (list peter mary paul)
   (list paul peter mary)
   (list paul mary peter)
   (list mary peter paul)
   (list mary paul peter)))
(define (run-permutation p)
  (accumulate (lambda (proc val) (apply proc (list val))) 100 p))
(pretty-display (map run-permutation permutations))

{40 50 40 35 45 45}

Things can become more complicated if the transactions don’t run atomically. For example, Peter’s transaction adding $10 could start such that it has calculated the new balance but not updated it. If it yielded and allowed both of the other transactions to run to completion, it would set the final balance to be equal to the $110 it would have been at the beginning. This would be great for Peter, Paul, and Mary, but the bank would probably fire the programmer who allowed it to happen.

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