Getting retro with...a movie.

By Andrew Schultz · December 9, 2010

Somehow an online conversation got to the discussion of the Towers of Hanoi puzzle. Tower, towers. We discussed other annoying introductory computer science puzzles. The one that always had me baffled was Nim, well, until I learned mathematical induction, anyway.

And any rite of passage from the bad old days included the film Sorting out Sorting. I had the dubious privilege of watching this twice. I remember being baffled by heap sort, but it seems simple now.

It's about the closest thing computer science has to Reefer Madness.

Comments 2

bloomer Dec 9, 2010

I just watched the whole thing and I didn't get heap sort on one pass. But who cares about Heapsort when you've got Quicksort?

I thought Shellsort was pretty cool, but I guess that was an early call what with 20 minutes more film left to go.

The music is excellent, too.

aschultz Blogger Dec 10, 2010

I remember hating shellsort in class, but it makes more sense now. Maybe I only hated it because my computer science teacher loved it and told us about the research paper she wrote on it as a postgrad. She was the first teacher I got mad at for me not liking her and not having an easy reason to. There would be more.

I also forgot to add that in the discussion it was revealed that people who watched the film multiple times had a Rocky Horror Picture Show routine for it. Not that I really like RHPS, but the concept is awesome.