Question

I was recently reading an article which mentioned:

For God’s sake, don’t try sorting a linked list during the interview.

Is there any reason why the author wrote this? The reason is not immediately clear. I am aware that merge sort works on linked lists in O(nlgn) time- what’s wrong with that? Am I missing something obvious?

EDIT:
Any reason why is question is voted to close? I’m honestly curious and merely looking for some answers or interesting points.

Answer 1

I have no way of knowing why the author of the blog wrote what he did. If I had to guess, I’d say what was really meant was something along the lines of:

Don’t assume that efficiently sorting a linked list would be as easy as sorting a data structure that provides random access to its elements. If you do end up relying on being able to sort a linked list, be prepared to explain what a suitable algorithm might be, and to discuss its complexity.