Jokes about algorithms

 I ask students to write me a joke about algorithms pretty regularly. I like seeing what they come up with...

• What did one cross-country star algorithm say to the other?
  "It's run time."
• Teacher: Write me an algorithm that runs in constant time.
  Student: Ok, the first part of my algorithm iterates over a list...
• What's the runtime of log?
  Nothing. Logs can't run.
• When in doubt, O(n!).
• What did the polynomial function say to the exponential function to get it to go away?
  "Beeg-O(n)!" [joke included a visual of an xy graph of poly and exp functions diverging with speech bubbles]
• "Knock knock"
  "Who's there?"
  "The Gale-Shapley Algorithm"
  "That joke wasn't funny"
  "I guess you aren't a good match for my humor!"
• Two engineers are stuck on whether to use BFS or DFS for a problem.
  Eng 1: Should we use BFS instead? Because we tried DFS and we're stuck?
  Eng 2: The real queue is why did I choose this career?
• A 1-day-old great dane talking to a 1-day-old toy poodle
  poodle: I'm bigger than you haha!
  great dane: I"m not worried I am Ω(you)
• Knock knock... Boom bruteforce algorithm
  

Algorithms puns:

• Dancer to Algorithms: "Wow algo! You really have rithm!"
• Why did Lila hate the orchestra concert?
  Because they didn't have any algo-rhythm!
  
• What did Lila play on the drums?
  An algo-rhythm
• What type of music do computer scientists listen to?
  Algo-rhythm-ic Music
• Mr. Merge, Mr. Selection, and Ms. Bubble all joined the Annual Sorting Dance Competition. Can you guess who won?
  Mr. Merge won! How? Because he had the best sorting algo-rhythm :)!
• If my name was algo and I did music they'd call me algo-rhythm!

Regarding graphs:

• What's the bakery's favorite algorithm?
  "Bread"th first search
• BreadFirstSearch, no rice no pasta!
• How do we know that topsort vertices prefer the heat?
  They have to leave once they reach 0 in-degrees.
• What did Dijkstra say to Kruskal?
  Why you so greedy
• What kind of search do you prefer?
  DFS, I like my algorithms with a little more depth to them. * badum tzzzz *
• What did BFS say to DFS? Nothing. Algorithms can't talk.
• Why did the edge cross the cut?
  Since it had to provide the shortest path :(

This post's theme word is capacitate (v tr), "to make capable." Studying computer science does not capacitate one for comedy.

If you created an algorithm, what would you call it?

 I take attendance by having the students answer a question.

If you created an algorithm, what would you call it?

Most people went for a legacy:

• [student's own first name]sort
• [student's own first name]algorithm
• [student's own last name]
• [student's own full name]3000
• [student's last name] method
• [student's last name]'s Algorithm
• Make[student's first name]OnTime

Then some people went for a bizarre name:

• golden
• Goat
• BifghkaJKHSTY
• cheeseburger
• transform 
• apples

Then some people went for a straightforward "impossible to say what this algorithm does":

• The Best Algorithm
• Algorithm
• Algo I
• Algorithm X

My favorite was the "extremely possible to say what this algorithm does":

• something descriptive

This post's theme word is maecenatism (n), "patronage". None of today's forward-thinking algorithm designers has favored maecenatism in their naming scheme; how is modern-day artisanal algorithm design to thrive without this historical source of support?