Actually, no it isn't like a bin-packing problem. It's like the sphere-packing problem. It is unbounded since he specifically asked for the smallest container. I'm pretty sure that is a rather bit nastier than bin-packing, since the only way to find the answer is to run the bin-packing work on a huge series of various container sizes. As I recall, that was what made this such a nasty problem, there isn't a specific strategy for finding the "best" answer, just a good strategy for finding a "fair" answer for a single facet of the problem.

OTOH, mentioning Sedgewick's book is good enough for a ++ in my book, anyday =) And you are correct in that refactoring the problem can surely help make it solvable.

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