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Subject: Re: Fast sort? - Bubble Sort!? (Question to Dr. Hyatt)

Author: Dave Gomboc

Date: 13:15:29 10/19/99

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On October 19, 1999 at 12:22:49, Bruce Moreland wrote:

>On October 18, 1999 at 17:28:12, Oliver Roese wrote:
>
>>BTW, by glancing through an older crafty version i stumpeld across a remarkable
>>comment there. Dr. Hyatt says there, that Bubblesort has outperformed all other
>>sortalgorithms for a particular sortproblem!
>>This is amazing, since AFAIK Bubblesort is the one documented sort-algorithm
>>that is theoretically dominated by any other documented sort-algorithm.
>>Consequently it is doomed by many as the "poor-mans-sort."
>>Since i assume Dr. Hyatt knows what he say, we have a counterexample.
>>Is there a explanation to that?
>
>The explanation is that a high percentage of the time you only have to bubble up
>the top move or two.  You don't end up sorting the whole list.
>
>If your goal is to create a sorting algorithm that puts the best element at the
>top of the list, and it is allowable to leave the rest undisturbed, the best
>algorithm is clearly the bubble sort.  You just look through the elements and
>move the top one to the top.

Caveat: That sounded like an insertion sort to me, not a bubble sort.

>If you do a more complicated sort, you may sort the list faster, but the work
>will almost always be wasted.
>
>You can drive faster than you can run, but if you want to get to 7-11, and it's
>only a block or two away, it might be faster to run, since it takes time to find
>your keys, get in the car, start it, get out of the driveway, park at the 7-11,
>and get out of your car.
>
>bruce

Dave



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