On Mon, Mar 26, 2001 at 05:17:38PM -0500, John Porter wrote:
> Simon Cozens wrote:
> > With all due respect, that's not been my experience. Even beginners know
> > how to do things like "length", by far the most common case for the ST.
>
> You must be kidding. Sorting a list of strings by length is more
> common that, say, sorting them numerically by some embedded number?
> I don't think so.
>
> Besides, simply sorting strings by length doesn't require ST.
> The ST applies when you want to sort by one or more embedded "fields".
Huh? ST (or GR) applies to any situation where you your sort
comparator function isn't directly expressible with (Perl) primitives,
and worthwhile it is (like Yoda feel I) when the cost of converting
the keys (so that the primitives can again be employed) begins to
dominate the overall cost of sort().
--
$jhi++; # http://www.iki.fi/jhi/
# There is this special biologist word we use for 'stable'.
# It is 'dead'. -- Jack Cohen
