On: I'm a cargo cult programmer, help me

[Jach]

http://warp.povusers.org/grrr/bubblesort_eng.html

>Teaching bubble sort as some kind of "basic sorting algorithm" has real-life negative consequences. This is a real-life example: this is a piece of code in the gnu flex program:

    /* We sort the states in sns so we
     * can compare it to oldsns quickly.
     * We use bubble because there probably
     * aren't very many states.
     */
    bubble (sns, numstates);

>There's absolutely no rational reason why bubble sort was used here instead of insertion sort. Bubble sort can only be slower, and it's not in any way easier to implement.

[cgoddard → Jach]

Actually for small values of n, an n^2 sort can be quicker than an nlogn sort, depending on how it is implemented.

[Jach → cgoddard]

Yeah, hence insertion sort (the best n^2 sorter) is used to speed up quick-sort. It's insane to think of using bubble sort for the same task. (And for n=2, you don't need a sorting algorithm.)