Chaitana’s Colossal Coaster Exercise Instructions Fact-Checking

This is concerning the following paragraph in the Chaitana’s Colossal Coaster exercise’s instructions:

A list can be re-ordered in place with the help of <list>.sort(). Internally, Python uses Timsort to arrange the list. Default order is ascending from the left. The Python docs offer additional tips and techniques for sorting lists effectively.

It seems that since version 3.11, the new sorting algorithm is used now instead of Timsort:

Or maybe it would make sense to just leave that paragraph out.

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Hi @YasirA :wave:

Welcome to the Exercism forum!

Happy that you’re reading the docs in detail (even if we’ve been remiss in updating them.). :smile:

Thank you for reporting the outdated information. It’s been corrected and merged in PR 3776.

Let us know if you spot any further issues or encounter any other problems.

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Cool. That was quick! Thanks for letting us know about the change.

One more slight nitpick I was going to mention, but forgot about it.

I guess the word ‘efficiently’ would be more appropriate than ‘effectively’, as any sorting would be effective provided it is correct, but not every algorithm and not in every case (a certain set of data to be sorted, the amount of memory, etc.) would be equally efficient, i. e. there are more efficient algorithms, there are less efficient algorithms (for a certain set of data).

Is this the sentence you’re referring to?

The Python docs offer additional tips and techniques for sorting lists effectively.

:thinking: - I might have to quibble here. The Sorting HOWTO goes over:

  • key functions,
  • using operator and partial evaluation in the course of a sort
  • how to control ordering (Ascending vs Descending)
  • sort stability
  • decorators
  • comparison functions
  • local-specific sorting, and more.

So I would argue that the article is about how to make sort more effective for your use case through different techniques, as opposed to making it more efficient.

But it could also convey that info without the use of the word “effective” … I’ll consider pushing a PR here in a bit. :wink:

Yes, Bethany. Exactly this sentence.

Fixed & merged in PR 3777. :smile:

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BethanyG is the best.

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