What are the typical questions on sorting algorithms?
The typical questions address runtime efficiency (as a function of input size, pre-ordering, key distribution, etc), worst-case runtime behavior, likelihood of that worst-case(s), average case, in-place data moves (as opposed to scratch-space requirements), stability (keeping pre-ordering on otherwise equal elements), overhead (computational effort per iteration), data access patterns (e.g. important when sorting data on a single tape). Samples: quick sort is efficient, has a bad worst-case behavior, which can however be made very unlikely, moves data in-place and is typically unstable; insertion sort is inefficient, has however a low overhead, moves data in-place and is stable.
