Gear-Head Humor and Other Important Items
Item 1: It was a joke. The volume of mail I received in response to my April 2002 forum (about Quirksort) bears witness of two important things: 1) people care about algorithms, and 2) people read my forums! I had just finished reading two books about Fermat’s Last Theorem (The Parrot’s Theorem, by Denis Guedj, and Fermat’s Enigma, by Simon Singh) when the deadline for April’s forum drew near, so what better way for a little April Fool’s Fun than to state something controversial and cite lack of space for my lack of explanation? For the record, it is a well-known mathematical fact that sorting algorithms based on simple comparisons alone cannot be faster than O(n logn). Radix Sort, a common algorithm that breaks that barrier, makes assumptions about the data — it doesn’t use just simple comparisons. Was it fun for you?
Item 2: Okay, I give up. I might as well expect the Nile to stop flowing by my holding up a sign that reads, “Please Stop,” than to expect people to use the term “function object” instead of “functor.” Scott Meyers uses it in his STL book, and Thomas Becker uses it (with a polite disclaimer) in his article in this issue. You win. I acquiesce. I’ll stop complaining. But I won’t use the term myself :-).
Item 3: “Hello”: Hurray! We have a new Editor-in-Chief and we couldn’t be happier. Welcome to Joe Casad, who has long been associated with our sister publications. We have already noticed a great change for the better behind the scenes, and the effect of his contribution is fast becoming visible on the printed page. Boy, are we happy!
Item 4: “Goodbye”: Boy, are we sad. It’s one of those things, but we must bid farewell to Stan Kelly-Bootle, guru, commentator, and wordsmith extraordinaire. I have been enjoying his perorations for oh-so-many-years and have always emerged from the experience at once enlightened and entertained. I leave the rest of this page for his personal note. Adieu.
Chuck Allison
Senior Editor
cda@freshsources.com
Alas, dear, dear fans, my April 2002 “Postmortem Debunker” column is the last of my regular CUJ contributions. As they sing in and about the Ould Sod: “Indeed yer dancing days are done; Stan, we hardly knew yer?” It’s been fun rambling away in almost every Miller Freeman Inc. (a.k.a. MaFIa) magazine since 1984. A parting glass to all the friends I made en route.
Stan Kelly-Bootle