No, not like a stack. A stack gets pushed and popped from the end. She's pulling from the front, but not even in the sense of a queue. It's just an array that happens to get consumed based on which one has the lowest first value.
She treats merge as a private API for this algorithm, giving it knowledge that leftArray and rightArray belong to the mergeSort algorithm so it can do whatever it needs to with them. If I had to guess, I'd say it looks like a refactoring, pulled out into its own function after having to do the same operation with both segments of the original array.
The most important thing to keep in mind is that she's not optimizing the code for execution time, space, or anything involving a computer. Instead, she's optimizing for readability for the audience she's targeting with this blog series — that is, developers who don't have a background in CS. The example you pasted above, while apparently correct and probably efficient, is a poor teaching tool for that audience. A single iterator for the main array and only working with the front of the two other arrays is less cognitive load than having three iterators moving through three arrays at three different paces.
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No, not like a stack. A stack gets pushed and popped from the end. She's pulling from the front, but not even in the sense of a queue. It's just an array that happens to get consumed based on which one has the lowest first value.
She treats
mergeas a private API for this algorithm, giving it knowledge thatleftArrayandrightArraybelong to themergeSortalgorithm so it can do whatever it needs to with them. If I had to guess, I'd say it looks like a refactoring, pulled out into its own function after having to do the same operation with both segments of the original array.The most important thing to keep in mind is that she's not optimizing the code for execution time, space, or anything involving a computer. Instead, she's optimizing for readability for the audience she's targeting with this blog series — that is, developers who don't have a background in CS. The example you pasted above, while apparently correct and probably efficient, is a poor teaching tool for that audience. A single iterator for the main array and only working with the front of the two other arrays is less cognitive load than having three iterators moving through three arrays at three different paces.