RFC 304 (v1) C<sort> algorithm to be selectable at compile time

This and other RFCs are available on the web at
  http://dev.perl.org/rfc/

=head1 TITLE

C<sort> algorithm to be selectable at compile time

=head1 VERSION

  Maintainer: Simon Cozens <[email protected]>
  Date: 25 Sep 2000
  Mailing List: [email protected]
  Number: 304
  Version: 1
  Status: Developing

=head1 ABSTRACT

Quicksort and mergesort both have their uses. Let the user choose which
Perl uses.

=head1 DESCRIPTION

While this RFC is ostensibly to allow the user to say something like
this:

    { 
        use sort 'quick';
        @array2 = sort @array;
    }
    use sort 'merge';
    ...

the real benefit comes when the code is being compiled into a standalone
executable; given sufficient magic, the compiler can analyze the
expected data flow and guess what the most suitable sort algorithm
should be for each instance of C<sort>.

=head1 IMPLEMENTATION

Provide multiple sort algorithms, and have a pragma select which Perl
uses; when a program is being compiled, analyze the data and
heuristically select the better algorithm if possible.

=head1 REFERENCES

None.