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It is the typical curriculum. I'm curious about why it is appropriate. This should be about practical knowledge, not about "throw every algorithm at them and see what sticks"! That's why I only cover two sorting algorithms in my book. I cover selection sort to teach arrays, and I cover quicksort to teach recursion.

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Mergesort can be a good introduction to the divide-and-conquer pattern, which seems equally important in an algorithms course.

I think that a big part of algorithms knowledge is knowing what exists. So even a though typical curriculum forces the learning of each of these algorithms, I think the value is in knowing the trade offs between each in terms of complexity (space, time) and ordering.

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