Crappy algorithm because of the pivot selection algorithm used. Crappy style because: it doesn't use the language libraries to increase the readability, it allocates new arrays on each call, it uses arrays and the function takes the length of the list as an argument (C guy who just learned C++?).
That is a bad way to choose a pivot. Unfortunately, the Haskell quicksort tells the machine to choose it that way. But the quicksort algorithm doesn't force anyone to pick the first element as the pivot. Your earlier post suggested that the quicksort algorithm was crappy, not that the Haskell program was crappy because it told the machine to use a lousy way to pick a pivot.
The iterators for arrays are just pointers, and arrays decay into pointers at function boundaries anyway so, there is no overhead.
In C, an array name stands for a pointer that points to the array's first element. If an array consists of a collection of data that live in consecutive storage locations, you might need a pointer even when you're sorting an array.
By using iterators you make sure your algorithm can work with any linear sequence that provides random access. The whole point is to not care about what kind of data structure you are sorting. You see, now the C++ version is even more generic than the Haskell solution!!
That's a good point. But Haskell is not, and has never been, object-oriented. It's a purely functional language where you don't mix programming paradigms. If I want to write an objected-oriented program, I'll write in an object-oriented programming language. I'd rather not mix paradigms.
For example? By the way, I have two degrees. The first was in Data Processing, and I programmed professionally before I earned the Philosophy degree with a minor in Computer Science.
You might be surprised to know how much philosophy can help a programmer. Philosophy is largely about abstraction. So is programming. A few courses in logic help a programmer, too. I specialized in logic when I earned my philosophy degree. If you compare logic the discipline the first-order predicate logic and sentential logic, you'll know that mathematicians and computer scientists ignore many of logic's subfields. In some of those subfields, abstraction seems more important than it does in OOP.
