Chapter 4, Metalinguistic Abstraction

Exercise 4.37


Yes, it is more efficient as it requires fewer number of checks. We just check if third number is integer? which obviously is far less costly than searching for a number, $\, k \,$, that satisfies the constraint $\, i^2 + j^2 = k^2 \,$.

However, this comes with an assumption that the computation of sqrt takes insignificant time comapared to scanning the numbers from $\, j \,$ to $\, high \,$.