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I don't have that book, so you'll have to explain the reasoning if you want to convince me. I did find the MIT OCW lecture transcript on randomized quicksort, b
by sesqu 16y ago
I don't have that book, so you'll have to explain the reasoning if you want to convince me. I did find the MIT OCW lecture transcript on randomized quicksort, based on the book, and it described how randomization probably defeats an adversary supplying a worst-case initial permutation when the pivoting algorithm is known. That's a different adversary to the one we are discussing, even if relaxed; it has to supply an input that is consistent and fixed. They also motivated the scenario in terms of competition, which I find less reasonable than actual malevolence, but that bears little relevance now.
When theory and practise diverge, there is strong reason to hold the practise as more defensible than the theory. How would you say the practice should be amended to not suffer from this problem that is apparently not extant in theory? I hold that it cannot, for this adversary is more capable than the other.