The optimality of move-to-front (under what precise meaning of "optimality" I couldn't tell you) for organizing a list is a fairly well-known result in computer

The optimality of move-to-front (under what precise meaning of "optimality" I couldn't tell you) for organizing a list is a fairly well-known result in computer science. Knuth mentions it in TAOCP, vol 3. It's a wonder it took this long for someone to apply this result to real life.