What is the fastest sorting algorithm for a small number of integers?

Question

I am wondering what the fastest algorithm would be for this. I have 8 integers between 0 and 3000 and I need to sort them. Although there are only 8 integers, this operation w

Answer 1

For positive integers, the fastest sort is known as abacus sort- it's O(n)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abacus_sort

If you only have a very few items, then it's unlikely that you will notice any performance difference from choosing any particular algorithm.