Re: list strawman

[Jeffrey Carter <jrcarter@acm.org>]

"Chad R. Meiners" wrote:
> 

[concerning using radix sort to sort an arbitrary list]

> True,  you do need provide a method and a type to key the data, but I
> believe that if someone can provide a less than operator they surely can
> provide these. (Well if all elements are of finite size)  This should handle
> arbitrary Elements.  Of course as the key size grows so does the constant
> time modifier, but this is a design time consideration so the designer can
> expect stable performance in the field over all data combinations.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but how can you radix sort

type Element is range System.Min_Int .. System.Max_Int;

into ascending order? I guess I would need to see an actual
implementation of a generic radix sort and how a client would invoke it
for my limited brain to understand what you're getting at.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"Perfidious English mouse-dropping hoarders."
Monty Python & the Holy Grail