Thanks @Pesse, I appreciate hearing your point of view, and I'll consider it. "Humiliating other people" is certainly a harsh way for my post to land, and not the spirit i intend. OTOH your suggested rewording fails to convey any of my shock and disappointment that this community of ostensibly competent programmers has offered and unanimously recommended (for 7 years) only O(n^2) algorithms for a really basic O(n) task; that dismay is an essential part of what I would like to express. —
Don Hatch 40 secs ago