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From: dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)
Subject: Re: Teaching sorts [was Re: What's the best language to start with?]
Date: 1996/08/19
Message-ID: <dewar.840504283@schonberg>#1/1
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references: <31FBC584.4188@ivic.qc.ca>
 <01bb83f5$923391e0$87ee6fce@timpent.airshields.com>
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 <Dw49yC.Mur@ukpsshp1.serigate.philips.nl> <dewar.840034153@schonberg>
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organization: Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences
newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.ada
Date: 1996-08-19T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


Stephen, in your comparison of the two sorting methods, you used code
that has an important difference, in the insertion sort you run the
loop backwards, which generates a more efficient termination test, but
in the bubble sort you run the loop forward, which results in a slower
termination test. This kind of accidental difference can cloud the results,
since we are looking for differences in loop overhead management here!

You *really* have to be careful in writing the code if you are going to
base conclusions on your measurements!