July 1961
Tony Hoare publishes Quicksort
Tony Hoare published the QuicksortA divide-and-conquer sorting algorithm — average O(n log n) and still taught in every algorithms course. algorithm in July 1961 — a divide-and-conquer sorting method still taught in every algorithms course.
What it was for
QuicksortA divide-and-conquer sorting algorithm — average O(n log n) and still taught in every algorithms course. became the default in-memory sort in standard libraries and a interview staple — average O(n log n) with elegant recursion. Hoare conceived it while working on machine translation sorting at Moscow State University.
People
- Tony Hoare — researcher
Why it's here
QuicksortA divide-and-conquer sorting algorithm — average O(n log n) and still taught in every algorithms course. is among the most influential algorithms in computer science education and practice.
Why it mattered
It demonstrated divide-and-conquer sorting with in-place performance.
What it solved
Sorting large datasets on tape and memory required faster than O(n²) methods.
Media
ImageTony HoareRama, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons