[net.lang] Quicksort, bubble sort

ech@spuxll.UUCP (Ned Horvath) (06/13/84)

A brief note on "quickersort" (see qsort(3)): it differs from quicksort
only in that it picks a "trial median" from the center of the list rather
than from one end.  It has n^2 behavior about as often as quicksort, but
it is much harder to find the right conditions "in real life."  In particular,
it runs REAL fast on a sorted list (precisely where quicksort blows up).

See Knuth v. 3 for more discussion about sorting than you thought was possible.

=Ned=