Alphabetically sorting business cards

http://sriramiyer.net/blog/2013/06/11/alphabetically-sorting-business-cards/

by sriramiyer • 13 years ago

2 2 13 years ago

hm8• 13 years ago

Did you switch over to insertion sort once the stack became more manageable? Personally, I would have used radix sort, while keeping the stack size manageable. This would mean less comparisons, manageable desk space and less effort. Plus selection sort (which is very intuitive when you aren't bound by array/list constraints) becomes really easy. real world example: Before we could set down for a game of poker; more often than not, my friends and I would have to form a complete deck from the many mixed up together. While quick/merge are the fastest comparison sorts, we would prefer doing a radix sort on the suite and then selection sort until cards of the color are sorted out. I think similar strategies would work here as well!

sriramiyer• 13 years ago

Well, now that you mention it, yes. When it became around 3-5 cards per stack it was quicker to use insertion sort. I found out, that like computers, it's ultimately a tradeoff between desk space(RAM) and stack iteration (CPU) by me.

I haven't tried radix sort - I'll go try it today and see how well I do. Nope, I don't do selection sort either, since it's quicker to perform insertion sort when stack size gets manageable.

Alphabetically sorting business cards

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