Bogosort (was: old threaded languages, was Re: Symbolics)

From: John Wilson <wilson_at_dbit.dbit.com>
Date: Wed Mar 1 15:32:10 2000

On Wed, Mar 01, 2000 at 01:51:22PM -0500, CLASSICCMP_at_trailing-edge.com wrote:
> I think the only reason they discuss Bogosort is to emphasize that
> just because Bubble Sort is the example used in lots of introductory
> classes, that doesn't mean that you should ever actually use it for
> anything :-). (Pre-RT-11 5.7 DIR/SORT notwithstanding, of course!)

I remember one of Jerry Pournelle's more lucid rants in Byte, ages ago, where
he questions the whole point of the Bubble Sort to begin with. Not only
is it an absolutely horrible algorithm, it's not even immediately obvious
how it works! Kinda defeats the purpose of using it as a first example
for beginning programmers. Insertion sort or brute force or whatever,
would make a whole lot more sense...

John Wilson
D Bit
Received on Wed Mar 01 2000 - 15:32:10 GMT