Contemplate sorting with columnsort

摘要

The efficiency of Internet search engines has made it trivial for students to find implementations of standard algorithms. This fact has led computer science educators to be more creative with their assignments to encourage students to create their own implementations. Unfortunately, excessive creativity can obscure learning objectives, particularly for less insightful students. We demonstrate that recasting the parallel sorting algorithm Columnsort for a uniprocessor environment provides the foundation for a variety of sorting assignments that can engage students while not obscuring educational objectives.