Because in the 1960s, sorting records was what computers spent most of their tim... | Hacker News

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cperciva on Oct 8, 2012 | parent | context | favorite | on: The software development final exam: Algorithms an...

Because in the 1960s, sorting records was what computers spent most of their time doing.

At this point, it's mostly a "because that's how we've always introduced algorithms and complexity" thing.

sukuriant on Oct 9, 2012 [–]

It's still what computers often spend a lot of time doing. What do you think your database engine is doing most of the time? Those indexed columns aren't just there to smile warmly upon your data.

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