Re: "Sorting" assignment

On Feb 7, 11:54 pm, spinoza1111 <spinoza1...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Feb 7, 10:40 pm, Julienne Walker <happyfro...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Feb 6, 10:52 pm,spinoza1111<spinoza1...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Feb 6, 12:20 am, Julienne Walker <happyfro...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Feb 5, 10:56 am,spinoza1111<spinoza1...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

example, you can use bubble sort as a simple implementation for adding
step-based execution and performance analysis. It's a simple algorithm
for introducing asymptotic notation and time complexity. It's also an
immediately useful exercise that covers non-trivial loop and array
logic, modularization, and comparison based sorting. I'd hardly call
that "nothing of value".

Nothing of beauty.

The reality of programming is that it's not always elegant or
beautiful. If you only learn the beautiful side of programming, you
won't be very useful in the real world.

...and we must, mustn't we, be useful in the real world.

I'm a practical person. Thought experiments typically don't interest
me unless I can see a practical use for them. As such, I see
programming as a means to an end, where the end is a useful piece of
software. That's one reason why I regularly use C, C++, Java, C#, and
Perl (for example) instead of "beautiful" languages that are certainly
more elegant, but I don't feel are as useful for the tasks I need to
complete.

I'd say that the students have the right to start
with something of reasonable elegance and beauty which derives that
elegance and beauty from the fact that we developed this algorithm
before computers. The insertion sort can be illustrated and is
illustrated by Cormen using a poker hand.

I'd say that the students have the right to start with whatever is
easiest for them to understand. That way they can progressively learn

Why? Why not start with the hard stuff, get it over with?

That's certainly a valid option, but it's that kind of system that
breeds the elitist view of "let's weed out the losers right away"
rather than "let's encourage everyone to excel". Both have their
advantages and disadvantages, and clearly you and I have a different
opinion of how to teach.

the gamut of algorithms and build on existing knowledge. Once more
I'll offer myself as an example. I didn't understand the "poker hand"
explanation of insertion sort at first. I had a much easier time of
things once I had a couple of sorting algorithms under my belt.

It doesn't matter how elegant an algorithm is if the student can't
wrap her mind around it.

Who is "the student" here? The solecism is similar to the solecism
noticed by Dijkstra in a text in Dutch in which the English word for
the "user" was untranslated because to the translator, who knew more
English grammar, apparently, than many English speakers, a noun phrase
that starts with a definite article needs to have a preintroduced
referent.

You don't tell children a story by saying the monster came out of the
closet. You introduce the monster using the indefinite article and
appropriate adjectives.

Likewise, Dijsktra didn't know what SORT of user was being spoken of.
Here, all I know is that the student is female (hint: there is no
solution to the absence of a non-neuter pronoun in English that means
male or female person, but in your passage you could replace "her"
with "the student's").

I for one am sick to death of being treated as an abstraction by
edumocationistical theoretical types who reason in terms of signifiers
with no referent.

Sorry, but that was a wasted rant. I feel like you didn't bother to
comprehend my words, as I clearly said "I'll offer myself as an
example." The "her" being me, as I was the example and the topic of
the sentence you quoted was the example.

Keep in mind that those learning bubble sort are likely to be very new
to programming, so while implementing the algorithm won't teach *you*
anything, it's very instructive to a less experienced programmer.

<snip> However, he did see
a contradiction between the tentative way in which people talk about
other people in sets and classes (such as "less experienced
programmer") in such a way that the rule governing the set replaces
thought.

I get the impression you're basically saying "exceptions exist".
That's nice, but exceptions are just that: exceptions. You're welcome
to show me a study or two that proves students learn nothing from
bubble sort, but until then I'll maintain that lessons can be learned
even from an "ugly" algorithm.

The "studies" are studies that established in the 1990s that a
striking plurality of employed programmers DO NOT CODE.

Yes, but studies of *what*? Your "proof" certainly isn't proof that
students learn nothing from bubble sort, and I'm somewhat curious why
you thought I would accept it as such.


-Jul
.

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