Von Neumann's First Computer Program (1970)
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Re: Von Neumann's First Computer Program (1970)
#2direct to pdf, https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/356580.356581
Re: Von Neumann's First Computer Program (1970)
#3tl;dr a variation of merge sort. Which is still one of the best sorting algorithms ever devised.
Pretty impressive for the first stored computer program ever.
Re: Von Neumann's First Computer Program (1970)
#4tl;dr a variation of merge sort. Which is still one of the best sorting algorithms ever devised. Pretty impressive for the first stored computer program ever.
Impressive also Knuth decided to represent the math as assembly for CLARITY. Sounds like a major blow to math notation when it comes to algorithms…
Re: Von Neumann's First Computer Program (1970)
#5Sorting has always been a bellwether for computing systems. Interestingly, Jim Gray recognized that 45 years later. He therefore initiated and evangelized the out of core Sort Benchmarks (sortbenchmark.org).
Re: Von Neumann's First Computer Program (1970)
#6tl;dr a variation of merge sort. Which is still one of the best sorting algorithms ever devised. Pretty impressive for the first stored computer program ever.
Stored program computing didn't spring out of Zeus' forehead; radix and merge sorting were already a computing thing in the epoch of punched cards.
Re: Von Neumann's First Computer Program (1970)
#7tl;dr a variation of merge sort. Which is still one of the best sorting algorithms ever devised. Pretty impressive for the first stored computer program ever.
Impressive also Knuth decided to represent the math as assembly for CLARITY. Sounds like a major blow to math notation when it comes to algorithms…
Given that von Neumann had his name lent to "von Neumann regular" elements and rings (exercise: what, if any, is the relation to "regular expression"?), I suspect he could've come up with an algorithm notation that was both (a) exceedingly well suited to expressing FSM implementations, yet (b) inscrutable to all of us who grew up with assembly as a lingua franca.
Re: Von Neumann's First Computer Program (1970)
#8tl;dr a variation of merge sort. Which is still one of the best sorting algorithms ever devised. Pretty impressive for the first stored computer program ever.
Stored program computing didn't spring out of Zeus' forehead; radix and merge sorting were already a computing thing in the epoch of punched cards.
Merging on a collator is different from merge sort. And yes, the concept of sorting was known before von Neumann. Still, not sure about you but my first computer program was quite a bit more basic, so allow me to remain impressed.
Re: Von Neumann's First Computer Program (1970)
#9The title states that this is von Neumann’s “first computer program,” but the writing includes plenty of indicators to the contrary and introduces the qualifiers “stored” and “extant.”
Maybe Knuth will issue a reward check to someone who emails him to fix the title?
Re: Von Neumann's First Computer Program (1970)
#10The title states that this is von Neumann’s “first computer program,” but the writing includes plenty of indicators to the contrary and introduces the qualifiers “stored” and “extant.” Maybe Knuth will issue a reward check to someone who emails him to fix the title?
No he won't. The point of the reward has always been to solicit improvements to the text, point out things he missed -- it does not include conscious/stylistic choices. Please don't waste his time, as (from personal experience) he really does read and respond to error reports :-)
”Punctuation is extremely important to me, but I insist on doing it my own way.” — Knuth
[Edit: BTW, where in the paper are you seeing "plenty of indications to the contrary"? As far as I can tell there is only one earlier program by von Neumann mentioned, an earlier and 80x slower version of this same sorting program, which has not survived.]