Topical Guide 310
Mark Dorset
Sorting: Techniques, Algorithms, Devices
Herb’s table was much longer than the old one. At the head, in place of the sliding door, was a cylinder with an opening in one side of approximately the same dimensions as the opening behind the old door. A crank allowed the doorman to turn this cylinder. As the opening rotated past the opening to the clam bin, the cylinder filled with clams, and, as the opening rotated over the table, the clams tumbled from the cylinder onto the table. The doorman could vary the rate of rotation to suit the pace of the cullers. The table was slanted so that the clams would be inclined to slide toward the far end. Herb and Swifty had carved the surface to create a system of valleys, through which the clams could be urged, by the cullers, to go. From the largest valley, at the head of the table, the clams might, with the assistance of the first group of cullers, pass into either of two smaller valleys, and then, from each of those, with the assistance of the next rank of cullers, into either of two still smaller valleys. The cullers used this system of branching valleys to sort the clams into their four sizes: undersize (that is, too small to sell legally), littleneck, cherrystone, and chowder clam. The system had the great virtue of allowing the use of apprentice cullers at the head of the line, since they merely had to distinguish the relatively smaller clams from the relatively larger clams. The more seasoned cullers who were stationed farther along made the subtler distinctions, and they did it with little wasted motion, merely nudging the clams a little to guide each into the proper valley. Toward the end, the table fanned out, and the valleys diverged, each ending above a crate, into which the clams tumbled fairly gently.
Herb ’n’ Lorna, Chapter 9
Sorting Algorithms Animations
The following animations illustrate how effectively data sets from different starting points can be sorted using different algorithms. …
Sorting is a vast topic; this site explores the topic of in-memory generic algorithms for arrays. External sorting, radix sorting, string sorting, and linked list sorting—all wonderful and interesting topics—are deliberately omitted to limit the scope of discussion.
[more to come on Friday, August 5, 2022]
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