User talk:Richss

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[edit] Order of prog lang sample implementations in algorithm articles

Hi, Richss. The articleis about the algorithm not about prog langs, thus the reason why the shortest implementations first. Alphabetical order is good when political correctness or the like are in order. This is not the case. It is not a matter of giving preference to one or another prog lang, it is a matter of keeping the interests of the reader of the article as the main guide. With some of the longest samples among the first, an alphabetical ordering makes it very hard for the article reader to realize that there are vastly different ways of expressing the quicksort algorithm in different prog langs. Just imagine if someone comes with an assembler implementation that takes 200 lines...

Furthermore, the shortest-first arrangement is more informative than the alphabetical one in the sense that with the latter it is very hard for the user to find out several things that can be readily glanced with the former: which implementations are alike, wich is the shortest one, etc. If there were dozens of implementations, then it the alphabetical listing would indeed come in handy in order to find a particular one, but this doesn't apply for small numbers. — danakil 23:38, Sep 7, 2004 (UTC)

Copied from Talk:Quicksort for record keeping purposes regarding above matter:

Sorry about the unnecessary alphabetizing. I must be going blind since I completely overlooked the intro to the section that the explained ordering of algorithms. Richss 03:17, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC)

Frankly, I found the ordering by length of code peculiar, considering most of the shorter examples are in non-mainstream languages and aren't efficient in practice. In particular, 5 different functional language examples may be overkill. Perhaps alphabetical would be less biased. Derrick Coetzee 03:49, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • 5 different functional language examples may be overkill —actually, the first eight samples are written in functional languages... nevertheless, the first four are all fundamentally different from each other (even the Miranda and NGL entries, which look somewhat alike, are really different: the former is value-level, the latter function-level). The Erlang, Haskell, and Miranda entries are indeed completely analogous, though (however, which to leave out and how to justify the choice? for then we should also choose between the Java and C# implementations) The OCaml and CL entries are closely analogous in spirit to those three, but expressed very differently. Regarding efficiency, some of those first eight implementations are not only clear, but very fast. If speed were the only concern, then the right example would be in assembler.
Anyway, the article is about the algorithm not about popular or mainstream prog langs, and this provides some support to having the shortest implementations come first. Alphabetical order is best when political correctness or the like are in order. IMO, this is not the case: it is not a matter of giving preference to one or another prog lang, it is a matter of keeping the interests of the reader of the article above everything else. This is, in fact, one reason for moving the samples section to the end of the article, right past the External Links, See Also, and References section. With some of the longest samples among the first, an alphabetical ordering makes it very hard for the article reader to realize that there are vastly different ways of expressing the quicksort algorithm in different prog langs. It becomes Just imagine if someone comes with an assembler implementation that takes 200 lines... Furthermore, the shortest-first arrangement is more informative than the alphabetical one in the sense that with the latter it is very hard for the user to find out several things that can be readily glanced with the former: which implementations are alike, wich is the shortest one, etc. If there were dozens of implementations, then the alphabetical listing would indeed come in handy in order to locate a particular one, but this doesn't apply for small numbers. — danakil 05:06, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC)
My thought had not been about somebody reading the article for pleasure (whom you wish to keep interested). Rather, I was thinking about what someone like myself would be doing, which is using it as a reference (encyclopedia) to see an example in whatever language I am using.Richss 12:04, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC)
  • I'm sorry, Richss. I hadn't intended to convey the idea of reading for pleasure (although now that you mention it, it doesn't seem to be a goal to strive to keep the reader entertained). By keeping the interests of the reader [above all] I certainly meant to tender to the interests of those who use Wikipedia as a reference tool.—danakil 16:24, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC)
It's true that efficiency is not the main concern, and I concede that the functional examples are sufficiently different, but can you really call a sort which isn't O(n log n) at all quicksort, even if it makes the same exchanges in the same order? (referring here to the example using list comprehensions - I'm not sure how the others work out) I agree that the number of examples is so far small enough that it's easy enough to spot your favourite language in the listing. Derrick Coetzee 14:25, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • I agree with you: it seems reasonable to require that a sort be actually O(n log n) in order for it to be called quicksort. Nevertheless, I'm sure there would be quite a few moors entrenched in that coast. Furthermore, there are quite a few different Haskell implementations, I wonder if all of them suffer from the same problem (I've heard several people claim that Miranda is much faster than the common Haskell implementations—Miranda is a commercial product while Haskell's use is mainly academic). On the other hand, the J,NGL,OCaml entries are, IME, certainly O(n log n), though. And I would be surprised if the Erlang and CL ones weren't. One final remark about performance: if someone was implementing production quicksort using Java, C, C++ or C#, he/she would likely go the non-recursive route. It would be nice to have an example of that. — danakil 16:15, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC)

Hi. the "test" message goes into user talk pages, not articles. Cheers, -- Infrogmation 18:33, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)