# Comparing Standard Library Sorts: The Impact of Parallelism

**URL:** <https://chapel.discourse.group/t/comparing-standard-library-sorts-the-impact-of-parallelism/30411>\
**Category:** Blog\
**Created:** [January 31, 2024, 9:44pm UTC](https://chapel.discourse.group/t/comparing-standard-library-sorts-the-impact-of-parallelism/30411 "2024-01-31T21:44:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 4

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mppf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/94ad74/32.png) [@mppf](https://chapel.discourse.group/u/mppf)\
**Post date:** [February 2, 2024, 3:16pm UTC](https://chapel.discourse.group/t/comparing-standard-library-sorts-the-impact-of-parallelism/30411/4 "2024-02-02T15:16:56Z")

</div>

FWIW, the quickSort isn't serial either. It's just not as effective at using parallel hardware as the radix sort. In other words, it has limited parallelism. I believe it is an error in the documentation to say `proc sort` will use a serial quick sort.

I wouldn't change the name of it from `quickSort` since I wouldn't assume a "quick sort" is Hoare's original sorting code. But either way, I'm expecting that when we stabilize the Sort module, `proc sort` will be the main interface, and things like `quickSort` might be deprecated or remain unstable.

But, regarding the `proc sort` documentation, adjusting it to call it an "improved quick sort" or something like that seems reasonable.

---

_[View the full topic](https://chapel.discourse.group/t/comparing-standard-library-sorts-the-impact-of-parallelism/30411)._
