From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.2 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: fc89c,97188312486d4578 X-Google-Attributes: gidfc89c,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,97188312486d4578 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,6154de2e240de72a X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 109fba,baaf5f793d03d420 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: 10db24,4cf070091283b555 X-Google-Attributes: gid10db24,public From: Lawrence Kirby Subject: Re: What's the best language to learn? [was Re: Should I learn C or Pascal?] Date: 1996/08/17 Message-ID: <840281517snz@genesis.demon.co.uk>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 174846446 x-nntp-posting-host: genesis.demon.co.uk references: <4u7hi6$s2b@nntp.seflin.lib.fl.us> <4uo74j$95p@ns.broadvision.com> <01bb8950$2c8dcc60$87ee6fce@timpent.airshields.com> <4ut8h3$2an@ccshst05.uoguelph.ca> x-mail2news-path: genesis.demon.co.uk organization: none reply-to: fred@genesis.demon.co.uk newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.unix.programmer Date: 1996-08-17T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article dewar@cs.nyu.edu "Robert Dewar" writes: >Gabor says > >"Qicksort isn't that hard to understand. Just grab a deck of cards and plow >through it. A deck of cards works for all the sorts I know and care to >know." > >I would disagree with this. The divide and conquer paradigm of QS is of >course trivial to understand if you understand recursion (although for >starting students, that can be a very big if!) > >However, the algorithm for the in place partition is quite tricky to >get exactly right, and I have often seen slipups in coding it. One problem is that there are several possible partitioning algorithms, even for in place partitioning. Also, in place partitioning isn't necessarily the easiest or best approach for cards (something closer to a list quicksort is probably better). -- ----------------------------------------- Lawrence Kirby | fred@genesis.demon.co.uk Wilts, England | 70734.126@compuserve.com -----------------------------------------