Incidentally, this is the same reason why sorting in C++ using std::sort is much faster than qsort[1]. Basically, std::sort, which is templated, lets the compiler do the same specialization and inlining that this article talks about.<p>[1] <a href="http://radiospiel.org/sorting-in-c-3-times-faster-than-c" rel="nofollow">http://radiospiel.org/sorting-in-c-3-times-faster-than-c</a>