Treating computer science as science as
Cary Laxer · 2001
When I teach sorting algorithms in our introductory computer science class, I always wonder how I can convince the students of the efficiency of Ο (n log n) sorts, and their complex code, vs. the ease of writing Ο (n2) sorts. With today's personal computers, even bubble sorting an array of a few thousand items appears to occur instantaneously. In addition, most textbooks provide the program code for implementing most of the standard sorting algorithms, such as bubble sort, selection sort, and quick sort. Since our introductory course has a closed lab period each week, I looked for something to do with my students when it came to sorting. Making them type in the code that was in the book seemed a waste of time.