Hello pythoneers! Have you
ever wondered what you would do if you dropped a deck of cards? Well, if
you're like me you would probably pick them up and remake the stack. BUT, what if you had obsessive-compulsive disorder and needed to sort every card in the
deck to keep them in order? Then you would probably want to know the
fastest way to sort your cards! If you think you fit the criteria for
this compulsion, then this sounds like a slog entry for you!
You see, in 148 recently we've been learning about sorting algorithms
and their efficiencies. The ones we focused on were bubble sort,
insertion sort, selection sort, quicksort and mergesort. You might
recall seeing a few of these from 108 and not knowing why they would be
useful, but now I understand! Here's where sorting could improve your well-being: Let's say we have a huge
list of data, like the index at the back of a textbook. Then, wouldn't
it be insanely hard and time-consuming to search for something if the
list wasn't sorted? You could save yourself loads of time by sorting
this list first and then searching for what you want. Now, depending on
how your list is sorted - ex: reversed, sorted - some sorting algorithms
may be a better choice than others. For instance, in a best-case and a
worst-case scenario selection sort would run at an efficiency of n^2,
making it not that great of an algorithm (sorry selection sort).
Mergesort however has an efficiency of nlogn for both cases!! wow! Lab #10 proved to be super helpful
for getting to know my sorting algorithms. In that lab we compared
these algorithms' runtimes by making graphs and by using different types
of lists of various sizes. What my partner and I noticed is that bubble
sort was pretty bad in every situation, while others proved to be
quicker. The coolest thing about it
was learning about the built-in sort that python uses. When you ask
python to sort a list for you, it will choose the most efficient one
according to the list you give it!!
Also, I was on Piazza the night before the second test and noticed that
someone posted a link to a list of best/average/worst-case complexities
for sorting algorithms. I'm guessing you want to see it so here you
go!!!! http://bigocheatsheet.com/ You're welcome :)
