Actually, it's useful when 'N' (the number of elements) is much larger than 'k', the number of significant digits in the largest number in the set. If k ∈ Θ(lo

Actually, it's useful when 'N' (the number of elements) is much larger than 'k', the number of significant digits in the largest number in the set. If k ∈ Θ(log N), then O(Nk) becomes O(N log N), which is asymptotically no better than any optimal comparison based sort. However, if k ∈ o(log N), then we get an asymptotically better algorithm.