[Simon Tatham, 2023-12-06]

Many years ago, my employer used to use “Can you name any sorting algorithms?” as a quickie interview question.

I’m something of a sorting-algorithms nerd, which is a quality that often comes with strong opinions. My personal prejudice (although I did my best not to let it affect the outcome of the interview) was that I was always extra pleased if our candidate listed a handful of well-known algorithm names and didn’t mention bubblesort.

Why? Because I hate it. Bubblesort is an awful sorting algorithm, and I wish people would stop teaching it.