Motivation
Lesson 2 of 9 in Coddy's Heap Sort - DSA Series course.
Heap Sort uses a binary heap to repeatedly find the largest remaining element in O(log n) time, giving a reliable O(n log n) sort.
Why learn Heap Sort?
- Guaranteed O(n log n): unlike Quick Sort, it has no O(n2) worst case.
- In-place: it sorts inside the original array and needs only O(1) extra memory, unlike Merge Sort.
- Heap intuition: it reinforces how a heap is stored in an array and how the sift-down operation keeps it valid.
If you have seen the Heap course in this series, Heap Sort is that data structure put to work as a sorting algorithm.
Try it yourself
This lesson doesn't include a code challenge.
Test yourselfThis lesson includes a short quiz. Start the lesson to answer it and track your progress.
