6 Apr
2009
6 Apr
'09
8:40 p.m.
So, pull a programmer under 30 at random from his desk
and ask him to
write a polyphase merge sort optimized for 8 tapes.
An art may still be lost in practice even if there's literature
around describing it.
I've run into "CS" graduates from the university who supposedly have
learned about really "good" sort algorithms (usually
"Shell-Metzner"),
without understanding which situations an optimized "bubble" is better
for.
When presented with "write a sort for a database that is too large to fit
into memory", the only response that they can think of is "well, get more
memory."
I fired one who was unable to write a program to print 3-up mailing labels
because the printer didn't have a reverse line-feed!
There are way too many "computer scientists" who haven't even read Knuth.
"They only assigned a few specific pages"
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com