eventual order, sometimes chaos
At first glance, the API doc says the method name as "sortOf".
As I finish the program, I picture a broad plain of steel boxes, each containing a Knuth. Some Knuths watch a Geiger counter that produces a monotonically sorted sequence of integers. Some Knuths watch a sortOf'd list that mostly increases (fizzy monotonic).
The handles on the set of all box lids are grasped by every possible Schrodinger. On a few boxes he is rolling dice with his other hand. At many others the box lid is already off, and the reek of rotten algorithms and if-then-else'd Knuths spreads, convincing some nearby Schrodingers to flee holding their lids, others to calmly walk away and leave their waves uncollapsed.
An arbitrary number of Knuths walk away from their boxes, each claiming the key realization.
How much faster is a sortOf algorithm than the fascist monotone?
Self-timed asynchronous circuits we are, multi-stable, full of maxima until the last one impedes its successors forever. Look in your ancestors' pictures and ask them yourself. They'll tell you, in a way.
As I finish the program, I picture a broad plain of steel boxes, each containing a Knuth. Some Knuths watch a Geiger counter that produces a monotonically sorted sequence of integers. Some Knuths watch a sortOf'd list that mostly increases (fizzy monotonic).
The handles on the set of all box lids are grasped by every possible Schrodinger. On a few boxes he is rolling dice with his other hand. At many others the box lid is already off, and the reek of rotten algorithms and if-then-else'd Knuths spreads, convincing some nearby Schrodingers to flee holding their lids, others to calmly walk away and leave their waves uncollapsed.
An arbitrary number of Knuths walk away from their boxes, each claiming the key realization.
How much faster is a sortOf algorithm than the fascist monotone?
Self-timed asynchronous circuits we are, multi-stable, full of maxima until the last one impedes its successors forever. Look in your ancestors' pictures and ask them yourself. They'll tell you, in a way.