Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C

From	Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.c
Subject	Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C
Date	2019-10-28 00:08 +0000
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<87ftjdspd8.fsf@bsb.me.uk> (permalink)
References	(11 earlier) <90254a82-7571-4767-9d6e-90f0d51e6d4c@googlegroups.com> <87wocrtr2y.fsf@bsb.me.uk> <qp408d$mco$1@dont-email.me> <87lft6rqy6.fsf@bsb.me.uk> <qp535l$jc3$1@dont-email.me>

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David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> writes:

<cut>
> Yes, insertion sort would make a perfectly good alternative to
> bubblesort.  That does not mean bubblesort is a bad choice for a
> starting point.

It's just a waste of time as you can't avoid teaching insertion sort.
It's an extra, and it has produced an odd effect: almost everyone can
remember only one simple sort, and it's the worst of the simple sorts.
Even if it's only worse by a tiny margin, it's still worse and, to me, a
pointless thing to spend time on.

<cut>
> ...  The point was that it is easy to see the advantages in
> moving from an O(n²) algorithm to an O(n.log n) algorithm - it is
> harder to see the advantages of different algorithms with the same
> average complexity.

I agree.  That's probably one reason why so many people reach for such
an inefficient quadratic sort.

> I can agree that insertion sort can be a good choice of first sorting
> algorithm when learning about these things.  I just don't agree that
> there is any problem with using bubblesort for that purpose.

There are simple swapping versions of insertion sort that are either
simpler than bubble sort (if you take the usual definitions of bubble
sort) or just as simple (if you take the broad definition that seems to
be in vogue round here).  Both are better than bubble sort in terms
of array accesses and comparisons, in some cases, dramatically so.
There's simply no up-side.

The only practical problem with teaching it is the waste of time.  Even
if you can argue that it's only trivially worse than insertion sort, why
bother?

-- 
Ben.

Thread

Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C DFS <nospam@dfs.com> - 2019-10-20 18:12 -0400
  Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Barry Schwarz <schwarzb@delq.com> - 2019-10-20 18:33 -0700
    Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C DFS <nospam@dfs.com> - 2019-10-20 23:16 -0400
      Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-21 13:15 +0100
        Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C DFS <nospam@dfs.com> - 2019-10-21 14:40 -0400
          Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-22 00:54 +0100
            Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-10-22 10:05 +0200
            Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2019-10-23 07:18 -0700
          Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Manfred <noname@invalid.add> - 2019-10-26 20:01 +0200
            Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C DFS <nospam@dfs.com> - 2019-10-26 17:50 -0400
              Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Manfred <noname@add.invalid> - 2019-10-28 16:33 +0100
      Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Barry Schwarz <schwarzb@delq.com> - 2019-10-21 07:56 -0700
      Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-10-21 16:46 +0100
        Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C DFS <nospam@dfs.com> - 2019-10-21 14:57 -0400
          Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-10-21 20:53 +0100
            Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C DFS <nospam@dfs.com> - 2019-10-21 16:05 -0400
              Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-10-21 21:12 +0100
            Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C DFS <nospam@dfs.com> - 2019-10-21 20:08 -0400
              Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-10-22 10:27 +0200
          Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-10-22 19:45 +0100
            Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> - 2019-10-22 19:58 +0000
            Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C DFS <nospam@dfs.com> - 2019-10-23 11:46 -0400
              Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-10-23 20:02 +0100
              Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-24 01:38 +0100
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C DFS <nospam@dfs.com> - 2019-10-23 22:10 -0400
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ike Naar <ike@sdf.lonestar.org> - 2019-10-24 07:24 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C DFS <nospam@dfs.com> - 2019-10-24 09:29 -0400
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2019-10-24 08:45 -0700
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C DFS <nospam@dfs.com> - 2019-10-24 11:56 -0400
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2019-10-24 09:13 -0700
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-24 18:28 +0100
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-24 10:36 +0100
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C DFS <nospam@dfs.com> - 2019-10-24 09:26 -0400
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-24 18:29 +0100
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C DFS <nospam@dfs.com> - 2019-10-24 14:38 -0400
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-24 21:30 +0100
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-10-24 11:30 +0100
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-24 20:36 +0100
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-24 21:34 +0100
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-10-24 22:42 +0100
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C DFS <nospam@dfs.com> - 2019-10-24 18:59 -0400
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-25 02:48 +0100
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2019-10-26 04:33 -0700
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-26 17:21 +0100
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-10-26 18:47 +0100
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-26 23:24 +0100
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-10-27 00:29 +0100
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-27 01:58 +0100
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-10-27 12:02 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-28 02:08 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> - 2019-10-26 14:29 -0600
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2019-10-26 13:36 -0700
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-10-26 22:06 +0100
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-26 23:04 +0100
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-10-27 12:49 +0100
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-27 18:20 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-10-27 22:45 +0100
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-28 00:08 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2019-10-27 14:57 -0700
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-28 01:08 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-10-28 01:44 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-28 02:31 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-10-28 10:42 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-10-28 12:45 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-28 17:39 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-10-28 20:31 +0100
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-28 20:22 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-10-28 22:07 +0100
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-28 22:22 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-10-29 10:17 +0100
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-29 11:21 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C already5chosen@yahoo.com - 2019-10-28 11:05 -0700
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-10-28 19:26 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-28 21:08 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-10-28 21:57 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-28 23:59 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-10-29 00:53 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-29 01:09 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-10-29 01:32 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C DFS <nospam@dfs.com> - 2019-10-28 22:44 -0400
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2019-10-29 03:05 -0700
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-10-29 11:12 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C already5chosen@yahoo.com - 2019-10-29 04:19 -0700
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-10-29 11:47 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2019-10-29 05:03 -0700
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-10-29 13:16 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-29 17:13 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-10-29 17:35 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ike Naar <ike@sdf.lonestar.org> - 2019-10-30 07:19 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-29 16:19 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-10-29 16:50 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2019-10-29 10:03 -0700
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-10-29 17:13 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C already5chosen@yahoo.com - 2019-10-29 10:23 -0700
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-29 22:20 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C already5chosen@yahoo.com - 2019-10-30 03:04 -0700
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-30 15:39 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2019-10-30 09:02 -0700
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-30 19:35 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C already5chosen@yahoo.com - 2019-10-30 14:11 -0700
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-10-31 03:34 +0000
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2019-11-04 17:02 -0800
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Lew Pitcher <lew.pitcher@digitalfreehold.ca> - 2019-10-26 12:30 -0400
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Robert Wessel <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> - 2019-10-26 12:03 -0500
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> - 2019-10-26 14:25 -0600
                Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2019-10-24 18:06 -0700
        Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-10-21 22:44 +0100
          Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C DFS <nospam@dfs.com> - 2019-10-21 19:00 -0400
  Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2019-10-21 10:20 +0800
    Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-10-21 12:44 +0100
  Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2019-10-21 10:24 +0800
    Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C DFS <nospam@dfs.com> - 2019-10-20 23:05 -0400
      Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2019-10-21 11:32 +0800
  Re: Challenge for Feeb: dealing with large numbers in C Autist <autist69@gmail.com> - 2019-10-29 15:15 +0100

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