bubble sort

bubble sort
 n.

   Techspeak for a particular sorting technique in which pairs of
   adjacent values in the list to be sorted are compared and interchanged
   if they are out of order; thus, list entries `bubble upward' in the
   list until they bump into one with a lower sort value. Because it is
   not very good relative to other methods and is the one typically
   stumbled on by {naive} and untutored programmers, hackers consider it
   the {canonical} example of a naive algorithm. (However, it's been
   shown by repeated experiment that below about 5000 records bubble-sort
   is OK anyway.) The canonical example of a really bad algorithm is
   {bogo-sort}. A bubble sort might be used out of ignorance, but any use
   of bogo-sort could issue only from brain damage or willful perversity.
    

bubble sort

   A sorting technique in which pairs of adjacent values in the
   list to be sorted are compared and interchanged if they are
   out of order; thus, list entries "bubble upward" in the list
   until they bump into one with a lower sort value.  Because it
   is not very good relative to other methods and is the one
   typically stumbled on by {naive} and untutored programmers,
   hackers consider it the {canonical} example of a naive
   algorithm.  The canonical example of a really *bad* algorithm
   is {bogo-sort}.  A bubble sort might be used out of ignorance,
   but any use of bogo-sort could issue only from brain damage or
   willful perversity.

   [{Jargon File}]