4.1290 Adv Humanities Programming (2/109)

Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Sat, 27 Apr 91 14:02:19 EDT

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 1290. Saturday, 27 Apr 1991.

(1) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 91 10:21:27 EDT (26 lines)
From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM>
Subject: Advanced Humanities Computing

(2) Date: Sat, 27 Apr 91 17:18:33 MET (83 lines)
From: Hans van der Laan <RCDILAA@HDETUD1.BITNET>
Subject: Re: 4.1262 Qs: Adv Humanities Programming...(replacement)

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 91 10:21:27 EDT
From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM>
Subject: Advanced Humanities Computing

Thanks for the responses concerning a suitable text for a course on Advanced
Humanities Computing. I know the Sedgewick text in both editions, and I agree
that it gives a good summary of the major algorithms. Another text along the
same lines that I prefer is "Data Structures and Algorithms" by Alfred Aho et
al. Both are essentially reference works however. I see the problem as
follows. If I use a text such as Sedgewick, I have to include virtually all
of the programming examples myself, since Sedgewick just gives the basic
algorithms. On the other hand, if I use a true "textbook", then I am largely
constrained by the examples in the book, which are rarely appropriate to a
course on Humanities Computing. As Nancy Ide says, there is no good text for
this task, though I was hoping someone would know of one. I posed the same
query to a sales rep who replied, not surprisingly, that his company had the
perfect text for the course, namely, "Intermediate Problem Solving and Data
Structures" by Paul Helman et al. This does look promising, though far from
ideal. If anyone has any experience with this book, I would welcome the
comments.

I have also toyed with the idea of writing my own text, but the last time
I wrote a textbook my colleagues referred to this as a "negative publication",
i.e., not scholarly, which perhaps explains why there are so few good texts out
there.

(2) --------------------------------------------------------------106---
Date: Sat, 27 Apr 91 17:18:33 MET
From: Hans van der Laan <RCDILAA@HDETUD1.BITNET>
Subject: Re: 4.1262 Qs: Adv Humanities Programming...(replacement)

[ ... ]

It might be of interest that there is a shareware package that
supplies most beautifull demo's of several sorting algorithms.
It runs on an IBM PC or clone. You can find it on many Bulletin
Bords under the name SORTDEMO.ARC. I enclose the description here.
Hans

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Hans van der Laan Bitnet: RCDILAA@HDETUD1
Advisor S-mail: P.O. Box 354
Delft University of Technology NL-2600-AJ Delft
Computing Centre The Netherlands

---------------- Cut here ----------------------------------------

Graphic Illustration of Sorting Algorithms K.L. Noell 03.Sep.87


It's difficult to explain sorting algorithms merely by verbose descrip-
tions. They are either easy to understand and simple to design but
they are very slow and inefficient; or they run fairly quick but their
design and implementation is rather complex and troublesome.

For teaching purpose I have realized an idea which illustrates various
sorting algorithms with the aid of real-time animated pixel graphics.
Keys to be sorted are 640 random integers distributed over the inter-
val [0...199]. These elements are stored in an array which is mapped
to corresponding screen pixels ( x:[0...639], y:[0...199] ).

In the beginning, this pixel distribution looks like a starry sky. After
the sorting procedure is started, you can watch its progress directly.
Swapping and moving of elements effects appropriate pattern updates by
shifting the pixels towards their final ascending order. Depending on
the particular sorting strategy, this works very slow and fussy or it is
intelligible sophisticated and quick. You can compare features and
performance of different sorting algorithms; after processing the
randomly distributed keys, the sorting can be started once more to deal
with an array already sorted, but in opposite (descending) order which
means sometimes the worst case. The frequencies of swaps and loops
(comparisons) are counted.

Turbo-Pascal programs are provided to demonstrate the following sorting
algorithms:

BubbleSort, HeapSort, LinearSort, QuickSort, ShakeSort, ShellSort .


My examples are based on sorting algorithms from the following books:

A.V. Aho; J.E. Hopcroft; J.D. Ullman: Data Structures and Algorithms.
Addison-Wesley, Amsterdam etc (1983)

Sara Baase: Computer Algorithms: Introduction to Design and Analysis.
Addison-Wesley, Amsterdam etc (1978)


I have written and tested these programs with Turbo-Pascal (3.01A) under
DOS 3.1, running in an IBM-AT02 and also in clones with CGA and EGA.


===> Disclaimer Notice <===

This SORTDEMO - package is provided for educational
purpose. Neither the author nor the distributor makes
any warranty or assumes any liability or responsibility
for accuracy, completeness or usefulness.
All risk of use is on the user.
It may be freely copied but may not be sold for profit.
Please keep the credits which refer to author and provenance.


Suggestions, problems: please send E-mail to NOELL@DWIFH1.BITNET

or contact: Prof.Dr. Karl-L. Noell
FHW - FB MND
Am Brueckweg 26
D-6090 Ruesselsheim
(W. Germany)