Ahoy! Welcome to one of the articles about destructuring a coding quiz from Twitter. This time, we check out a very funny sorting algorithm. Be prepared to order numbers with timeouts!

Snippet of the Week

This week's snippet is from Catalin Pit:

const numbers = [29, 11, 201, 7, 99, 912, 39, 31];

for (let num of numbers) {
  setTimeout(() => console.log(num), num);
}

The author defines and initializes an array holding a bunch of random numbers. Afterward, we iterate over each of them to set a timer to execute a simple console.log. Each timer gets executed after so many milliseconds, as the value of the individual array item is.

The Output

No big surprise here. Well, at least if you are familiar with the setTimeout API and gave the snippet some thought.
Indeed you get a list of sorted integers:

7

11

29

31

39

99

201

912

The Analysis

The idea behind this snippet is glorious! Instead of comparing the values and ordering them, you just let time decide. The highest value will delay the callback most, thus be printed last.

Appendix

Don't take this snippet seriously! It's meant to be a joke. It would be best if you never utilized setTimeout like that. It's solely for, well, "setting a timer". Never abuse this behavior.

Snippet Summary

• Trickery: visualising how setTimeout works
• Key Learning: setTimeout is an API to execute a callback after n milliseconds
• Further Reading:
  • WindowOrWorkerGlobalScope.setTimeout()