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A comment on FreeBSD replaces bubblesort with mergesort on SYSINTs, results in 100x speed. Parent comment

Re:FreeBSD replaces bubblesort with mergesort on SYSINTs, re... by winternewt on Monday August 21, 2023 @04:34AM (#37206823)
But it could have been better for no additional effort. Doing something worse when the better option is just as easy suggests incompetence.
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Re:FreeBSD replaces bubblesort with mergesort on SYSINTs, re... by kragen on Monday August 21, 2023 @04:42AM (#37206862)
i wouldn't go so far as to say incompetence

even the best of us do stupid things sometimes

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Re:FreeBSD replaces bubblesort with mergesort on SYSINTs, re... by Closi on Monday August 21, 2023 @04:51AM (#37206921)
Yeah, but it was working.

And maybe it wasn't 'no additional effort' because they were more confident with quickly writing a bubble sort.

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Re:FreeBSD replaces bubblesort with mergesort on SYSINTs, re... by jazzyjackson on Monday August 21, 2023 @05:18AM (#37207076)
Doing something better when you already have something that works suggests a lack of time management xP
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Re:FreeBSD replaces bubblesort with mergesort on SYSINTs, re... by winternewt on Thursday August 24, 2023 @08:30AM (#37248023)
At some point there was no sort, and then somebody implemented the sort. That's the point in time that I'm talking about.
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Re:FreeBSD replaces bubblesort with mergesort on SYSINTs, re... by throwawaaarrgh on Monday August 21, 2023 @07:27AM (#37208057)
Never underestimate incompetence. It usually succeeds despite itself.

It also could have been apathy: knowing there was a better solution and just not caring what was implemented. I feel like this is more common than incompetence, especially in larger projects or organizations. Nature tends to take the path of least resistance.

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Re:FreeBSD replaces bubblesort with mergesort on SYSINTs, re... by ska on Monday August 21, 2023 @12:59PM (#37212260)
> But it could have been better for no additional effort.

Not if it was already written.

I don't know anything about this particular codebase, but one thing I have learned over the years is that when you are tempted to say "such and such decision was stupid" in a production codebase, you are almost always missing something.

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