The Codeless Code: Case 151 The Summer Scarf
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Summer’s first week had arrived with pleasant warm winds,
so most of the Temple now took their meals and meditation
outdoors. But Yíwen the Artist, who loved open spaces,
could not be found anywhere on the Temple grounds. Her
roommate, the nun Hwídah, chose to investigate.
She finally found Yíwen weaving silently in one of the
Temple’s vacant rooms, a diligent spider toiling at center
of an immense web of fine gray yarn. Its hundreds of cords
were being drawn from skeins scattered high and low around
the room. Yíwen appeared to be making a scarf from all of
them at once.
“Winter is six months away,” said Hwídah. “Explain.”
Yíwen strummed her hand gently across the cords. “Each shade
of gray maps to a distinct whole number, in order of value.
For zero I have chosen a color named ‘The Blackness Before
Time’. Thirty-one is ‘Charcoal Smudge’, sixty-three is
‘Looming Thunderhead’, and so on, lighter and lighter, to
two-hundred-fifty-five: ‘Celestial Cloud White’.
“An impressive palette for such a modest seasonal
accessory,” said Hwídah.
Yíwen held up the scarf in her lap. “This is no mere
garment. The pattern represents the evolving states of an
array of numbers as they are sorted. Each row represents one
step in the process, with its columns depicting the numbers
themselves. See: at this end the gray cords are in a
salt-and-pepper jumble, but with each row they grow
progressively more orderly as the algorithm tells me which
cords to swap. The final row’s columns will run smoothly
from black to white.”
“Yet I also see one thin glittering gold thread, and another
like ruby” said Hwídah.
Yíwen indicated a portion of the scarf with her fingernail.
“If the current step compares two elements, I place knots of
gold around the corresponding cords. If it selects a pivot
value, I embellish that cord with ruby. Thus the scarf will
have exactly as many rows as the sorting algorithm has
operations, and the aesthetics of the algorithm will be
revealed to the eye.”
“You are still seeking beauty in code,” said Hwídah.
“A thousand pardons, Hwídah, but that is not my sole
purpose,” said Yíwen. “Are you, I wonder, familiar with the
novice monk recently brought onto my team? His first task
was to ensure that a result set was ordered for display. Yet
he was ignorant of the built-in sorting utility, so he
implemented his own.”
“A most unfortunate waste of time,” said Hwídah.
“Your words are surprisingly apropos,” said Yíwen. “For he
chose Bubblesort, as we discovered in production when the
application was given a very large result set and took
several minutes to render the page.”
“You appear to be using Bubblesort as the basis for your
pattern,” said Hwídah, squinting at the finished rows.
“Indeed!” said Yíwen. “I have already completed a scarf
using the built-in Timsort algorithm. It is about one-fourth
of a meter wide by two meters long, and I will enjoy wearing
it. This Bubblesort scarf is a gift for the monk. It will
have the same width, but it will be somewhat more...
ungainly.”
“It will be sixty-four meters long!” exclaimed Hwídah.
“Now you understand why I must begin in June,” said Yíwen.
“As you observed, winter is only six months away.”
“And what will happen if the monk refuses to wear your
generous gift?” asked Hwídah.
“The same as if he fails to correct his ignorance,” said
Yíwen. She rolled the scarf into a thin tube and yanked the
ends to show its strength. “Sixty-four meters makes for a
clumsy scarf, but an excellent noose.”
