Sorting algorithms

Simon Willison’s Weblog Subscribe Sponsored by: CodeRabbit — Planner helps 10x your coding agents while minimizing rework and AI slop. Try Now. Sorting algorithms. Today in animated explanations built using Claude: I've always been a fan of animated demonstrations of sorting algorithms so I decided to spin some up on my phone using Claude Artifacts, then added Python's timsort algorithm, then a feature to run them all at once. Here's the full sequence of prompts: Interactive animated demos of the most common sorting algorithms This gave me bubble sort, selection sort, insertion sort, merge sort, quick sort, and heap sort. Add timsort, look up details in a clone of python/cpython from GitHub Let's add Python's Timsort! Regular Claude chat can clone repos from GitHub these days. In the transcript you can see it clone the repo and then consult Objects/listsort.txt and Objects/listobject.c. (I should note that when I asked GPT-5.4 Thinking to review Claude's implementation it picked holes in it and said the code "is a simplified, Timsort-inspired adaptive mergesort".) I don't like the dark color scheme on the buttons, do better Also add a "run all" button which shows smaller animated charts for every algorithm at once in a grid and runs them all at the same time It came up with a color scheme I liked better, "do better" is a fun prompt, and now the "Run all" button produces this effect: Posted 11th March 2026 at 10:58 pm Recent articles My fireside chat about agentic engineering at the Pragmatic Summit - 14th March 2026 Perhaps not Boring Technology after all - 9th March 2026 Can coding agents relicense open source through a “clean room” implementation of code? - 5th March 2026 This is a link post by Simon Willison, posted on 11th March 2026. algorithms 20 computer-science 14 javascript 745 sorting 6 ai 1913 explorables 29 generative-ai 1696 llms 1662 claude 261 vibe-coding 76 Monthly briefing Sponsor me for $10/month and get a curated email digest of the month's most important LLM developments. Pay me to send you less! Sponsor & subscribe Disclosures Colophon © 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026