Maybe it's the things you learn along the way, such as: - Recursion and induction (mergesort, quicksort) - Lower bounds on running time (O(n log n)) -

Maybe it's the things you learn along the way, such as: - Recursion and induction (mergesort, quicksort) - Lower bounds on running time (O(n log n)) - Data structures (heaps in the context of heapsort, binary search trees in the context of treesort, tries in the context of radix sort, etc.) - Difference between worst case and average case (quicksort) - The role of the hidden coefficient in O notation (insertion sort is fast for small n even though its running time is O(n^2)) Etc.