I think I'd use a most-significant-digit radix sort in real life. Radix sort doesn't require comparisons, instead you examine the first digit and drop into one

I think I'd use a most-significant-digit radix sort in real life. Radix sort doesn't require comparisons, instead you examine the first digit and drop into one of 10 buckets. You then recurse on each bucket. I think that'd be less frustrating than trying to do quicksort on such a large pile.