
The Second Year Isn't Any Easier
by Greg Borek

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, students of all ages.  Take your
seats please and for God's sake exercise some decorum out there!
That's better.  Now, welcome to the first day of classes here at
Venerable Old University.  As you know my name is...oh, er,
Flugelbottom, that's it, Dr. Horatio Flugelbottom.  You may have
inferred by these gray locks that I've been teaching here for a
while.  It's not terribly scientific for you to make wild assumptions
like that, but in this case your hypothesis would have been proven
correct.  And, I'm proud to say, I've been teaching here since before
your parents were born.

Now, let's get down to business.  During this hour I will be
lecturing on..., oh what was it?  Wait, I have it written down here
somewhere.  Was it in this pocket?  No, that's lunch.  Oh, here it
is, let's see if I can make this out..."Inspected by Number 12."
"Inspected by Number 12?"  What kind of fool name is that for a
class?  Wait, that must not be it..., let's see, ah, here it is in my
other pocket: Intermittent Protracting Concerts.  What?  That can't
be correct.  Let's see..., oh yes, it must be Intermediate
Programming Contempts.  Contempts?  No, no, no, concepts.
Intermediate Programming Concepts!  A bit of work but we got there in
the end, didn't we?

Hello, people, wake up out there!  I shall now be forced to take
attendance.  Now where did I put that attendance list?  Was it in
this pocket?  No, that's lunch.  Hold on.  Here it is.  Now, where
did I put my glasses?  Has anyone seen my glasses?  Come now, I had
them just a minute ago.  Where could they have possibly...oh, here
they are sitting on my nose, pretty as you please.  Someone could
have pointed that out, you know.  Now let's see, where did I put that
list.  What's this?  OK, here we are.  Is there a Mr. Insertion here?
No?  Well, that's one mark off for him.  How about a Mr. Shell?  I'm
waiting.  No?  Well, we're not doing too well today.  First day
jitters, I suppose.  Mr. Bubble?  What an odd name.  No?  Mr. Heap?
Mr. Radix?  Mr. Quick?  Could be an epidemic of something.  Odd to
have so many people out of sorts.

We'll just have to struggle along with the brilliant young scholars
that did manage to turn up.  Today's lecture will be a comparison of
various sorting algorithms.  The topic is a particular favorite of
mine.  Wait, now, let me find my list.  Was it in this pocket?  No,
that's lunch.  What's over here?  OK, got it.  Ready?  Some of the
various sorting routines we'll be discussing today are: a dozen eggs,
a quart of milk, a pound of sugar, pickles...  Pickles?  I don't seem
to be able to recall a pickle sort.  I remember being in quite a
pickle once.  It was back in the fall of '47.  The entire math
department, well, the whole school if you really want to get down to
it... OK, well maybe not the English department but definitely the
whatchamacallit department needed at least six whosits to go with
their five thingamajigs.  What a hoot!  No one ever suspected!  How
we did laugh!  What fun...

How did I ever manage to get off on that tangent?  Stop distracting
me.  What was I lecturing about?  Oh, yes, Operations research,
that's right.  Now, given a set of linear constraint equations and an
objective function containing variables that will be maximized
subject to those constraint equations, we can use the simplex method
to reduce... Did I leave the lights on in the garage this morning
when I left?  I'm not sure now.  I also noticed that the door needed
to be painted again.  It seems like I just painted that pesky door
the other day.  Let's see, when was that?  It definitely was during
the early part of the Eisenhower administration, I remember that
distinctly because...

People, people, wake up out there!  Please try and bend your mighty
intellects to the problem at hand.  Now if we could please continue.
Returning to our implementation of balanced binary trees...
[Tuition went up again this year. - ed.]                        {RAH}
--------------
Greg Borek is a C programmer with a "Highway Helper" (OK, "Beltway
Bandit" - but don't tell his boss we told you) in Falls Church, VA.
He has previously been mistaken for a vampire.  Netmail to: Greg
Borek at 1:261/1129.  Internet: greg.borek@rah.clark.net

