Esorterica
Aggregator page for essays on esoteric sorting algorithms and related side quests
This is the landing page for my occasional essays on esoteric algorithms — specifically sorting — plus essays that have grown out of them or may otherwise be considered related in (in)sensibility.
A pathology of sorts
Away from the well-trodden execution paths of sorting algorithms like quicksort, merge sort, bubble sort, etc., are some unusual, surprising and educational algorithms.
- Need Something Sorted? Sleep on It! An unexpected paradigm journey into sleep sort
- Get the Drop on Sorting Dropsort adventures in algorithm design, programming languages and sequential and concurrent control flow
- A Sort of Permutation Practical lessons in the impractical permutation sort
- The Most Bogus Sort Random fun with the esoteric bogosort ‘algorithm’
- Oh Snap! A randomly lossy hybrid esoteric sorting algorithm
You can find four of these algorithms plus another featured in a lightning talk of mine.
Factorial!
Permutation sort introduces us to algorithms with factorial escalating cost, which seems like as good an opportunity as any to digress and dig into this well-worn function.
- The Recurse of Factorial Deconstructing factorial implementations in unnecessary detail, from iterative to recursive, from control structure to data structure, from one language to another
- Lifting the Recurse of Factorial Recursion? Iteration? Or a third (or fourth) way?
Playing with numbers
All the essays listed above explore different approaches to control flow, decision structures in languages and time in code. A couple more essays explore this theme a little further.
- Out of Control An essay on paradigms, refactoring, control flow, data, code, dualism and what Roman numerals ever did for us
- Taking Months to Bits A calendrical journey into low-level programming
