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bubble sort
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bubble sort /n./ Techspeak for a particular sorting technique
in which pairs of adjacent values in the list to be sorted are
compared and interchanged if they are out of order; thus, list
entries `bubble upward' in the list until they bump into one
with a lower sort value. Because it is not very good relative to
other methods and is the one typically stumbled on by naive
and untutored programmers, hackers consider it the canonical
example of a naive algorithm. The canonical example of a really
*bad* algorithm is bogo-sort. A bubble sort might be
used out of ignorance, but any use of bogo-sort could issue only
from brain damage or willful perversity.
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