Ask Slashdot: How Do You Sort? 195
camperdave writes "I was recently going through a pile of receipts and other papers to put them into order by date. Lacking one of those fancy sorting sticks they have at the office, I wound up with all sorts of piles and I was getting confused as to which pile was for what. Finally, it struck me: Why don't I use one of the many sorting algorithms I learned back in my computer science classes? So I swept all the papers back into the box and did a radix sort on them. It worked like a charm. Since then, I've had occasion to try quicksorts and merge sorts. So, when you have to physically sort things, what algorithm (if any) do you use?"
Ob xkcd (Score:5, Funny)
The obligatory xkcd [xkcd.com]
Bucket sort or bin sort (Score:2, Funny)
Some days I use one; other days I use the other.
Bogosort (Score:5, Funny)
Shredsort (Score:5, Funny)
I find Shredsort to be the fastest.
Re:GPUs (Score:5, Funny)
Can the shader units of a GPU be harnessed to accelerate sorting?
They can, but you have to either use a very slow GPU, or have very fast fingers.
Re:Shredsort (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm, that's O(n).
Trashsort is O(1)
My method (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Shredsort (Score:3, Funny)
Hmm, that's O(n).
Trashsort is O(1)
But IdentityTheftSort is O(n!).
Yes - the Pile sort... (Score:5, Funny)
1) decide how tall you would like the pile.
2) move that much of the pile to a temp location.
3) remove the remaining pile to the garbage/recycle/shred bin, as appropriate
4) move the temp pile back to the production pile area.
You never said you were looking for anything... sorting piles of kipple seems to be a rather dull hobby.
Physically? (Score:4, Funny)
When I'm sorting things in meatspace, I use a heap sort.
I throw all the shit into a heap, then pick out the good bits.
Re:Shredsort (Score:2, Funny)
> But IdentityTheftSort is O(n!).
I thought it was O(noes!) ?