Sorting-algorithm animations have a long history, and, when I was younger, I thought these animations were fun to watch, but I never learned anything from them.

Sorting-algorithm animations have a long history, and, when I was younger, I thought these animations were fun to watch, but I never learned anything from them. At this point in my knowledge, I wouldn't expect to learn anything from a visualization unless I had already studied the algorithm quite closely and I had a specific question I wanted to answer. Even then, it's a shot in the dark; most algorithms don't lend themselves to being visualized. The animations are very pretty, though -- who knows, maybe they will help someone.