[branko_d]

Even if it's slower for the vast majority of cases, but there are rare cases where the computer would otherwise freeze, that's still a win.

[arp242]

Your computer will not freeze if your input is small enough no matter what big-O says. In many cases it's guaranteed to be small or small-ish.

[branko_d]

> In many cases it's guaranteed to be small or small-ish.

And in many cases it's assumed to be small, but not guaranteed. That's where the trouble lies.

A classic example is Windows using a quadratic algorithm for arranging desktop icons that caused severe performance issues when users had many icons on their desktop.

https://github.com/microsoft/Windows-Dev-Performance/issues/...