A Common-Sense Guide to Data Structures and Algorithms in JavaScript, Volume 1

Bubble Sort

Before jumping into our practical problem, though, we need to first look at a new category of algorithmic efficiency in the world of Big O. To demonstrate it, we’ll get to use one of the classic algorithms of computer-science lore.

Sorting algorithms have been the subject of extensive research in computer science, and tens of such algorithms have been developed over the years. They all solve the following problem:

Given an array of unsorted values, how can we sort them so that they end up in ascending order?

In this chapter and those following, we’re going to encounter a number of these sorting algorithms. Some of the first ones you’ll learn about are known as simple sorts, in that they are easy to understand but are not as efficient ...