Discussion on: Array sort

[James Robb]

The default Javascript sort is just a reducer effectively though. It loops each item gives you the current and next and uses the return value to denote the next position of the current item, swaps and setups the next iteration. I suppose I could just write sort like this:

function sort(collection, sortFn) {
  if(sortFn && typeof sortFn === "function") {
    return sortFn([...collection]);
  }

  return mergeSort([...collection]);
}

Now the default is the same but you can pass in quick sort or any other algorithm you like.

I initially used a reducer because during my creating of this article, I tested with non-recursive algorithms and so things like bubble sort, etc were easy to implement and seemed to work well with this model but you have a point, recursive algorithms don't seem to play so well with this. Perhaps I will change the article to reflect the code I added in this comment instead. I'll think about it after some more testing.

[Thor Galle]

Yup, that was my point! And that would be the full solution, but then you miss your abstraction of the outer loop.

I mean, it could be OK to keep the code it as-is, but then the "any algorithm" statement in the beginning is a bit misleading. Replacing with something like "any sorting algorithm with an outer loop" seems more correct. I'm not familiar with functional implementations of sorting algorithms, I would have to look at that.

[James Robb]

Yeah, I will update the article through next week and rewrite some of the tests and code since I can actually use this chance to link back to the other articles in the series on different sorting algorithms anyway and so it keeps things tidy and linked with one another narratively anyway.