Invisible wrote:
> Here's a little something a wrote. I'm sure you'll enjoy pointing out 
> all the simplifications, factual inaccuracies and incorrect use of 
> terminology.

It's very nice. There's nothing wrong with simplifications for explaining 
this stuff to people who don't already know it.

As Warp said, there are a few misspellings, but you know that. (I spelled 
poorly for many years, until I started looking up every word I wasn't sure 
of every time, and the hard ones started to sink in. :-) There are also a 
few correctly-spelled words that are just the wrong choice of word. (E.g., 
Insert sort: "One of the lowest sorts.")

In the "linked list", I'd not use the term pointer. I'd say "each slot 
stores the number of the next slot to check" or something. "Pointer" isn't 
something everyday people are comfortable with. (You could say "Computer 
programmers call these numbers 'pointers', so we'll use that term below.) 
But you probably want another paragraph explaining what pointers are, in 
terms of "numbers that tell you where to look next inside the memory" or 
some such.

And it's not a trail of breadcrumbs, but a "string leading to the next 
invoice" or something. Breadcrumbs only take you backwards to where you came 
from.

Typo: "We'll see what that might be useful later." (You mean "We'll see how...")

Under "Deletions", it's not quite true that moving all the elements of an 
unsorted list is as bad as moving the elements of a sorted list. You can 
take the last element off the end of the unsorted list and stick it in where 
you deleted the other element. Quite the inverse of adding an element.

For bucket sort, you might want to give an example like sorting playing 
cards, where you might split the deck into four suits and sort each suit 
separately before putting them back together.  Just a thought...

You need a conclusion section. A couple of paragraphs that summarizes what 
you just spoke about. Otherwise it's like ending a murder mystery with the 
detective revealing who dun it.

Your margins are somewhat wider than they really need to be, unless you're 
publishing for a particular journal or something.


Overall, highly impressive for a layman's introduction. Seriously, you write 
very well: Entertaining plus informative. Very well done.  Out of curiosity, 
how long did it take you to put this together?  I mean, once you decided to 
write it, how long did it take in terms of your hours spent?


-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   The NFL should go international. I'd pay to
   see the Detroit Lions vs the Roman Catholics.

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