Unsorting(randomizing) a sequence

[Dan Schmidt]

Jeremy Hylton <jeremy at cnri.reston.va.us> writes:

| I've rather fond of the following approach:
| 
| import random
| 
| def randomize(a, b):
|     return random.choice([-1, 0, 1])
| 
| l = range(2, 20)
| l.sort(randomize)

I'm not sure how robust this is.  I've seen at least one implementation
of qsort crash when given an inconsistent comparison function (e.g.,
one that doesn't obey transitivity).  And how is sort() supposed to
know when it's done?

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