Push_Swap, Paralysis, and Why I Finally Chose the Turk Algorithm

This past week, I almost hid behind “learning.” I was working on the push_swap project — a constrained sorting challenge where you must sort a stack of integers using only a limited set of stack operations (sa, pb, ra, etc.). No built-in sort. No shortcuts. Just operations and strategy. Instead of building, I kept researching. Radix sort? Turk algorithm? LIS-based approach? Chunking? I wanted the best algorithm before writing a single serious line of code. Time was moving. I wasn’t. Eventually, I realized something uncomfortable: I was optimizing for certainty instead of progress. So I started building. The Structure: Two Executables, One System Push_swap requires two programs: push_swap → generates sorting instructions checker → reads instructions and verifies if the stack ends sorted That separation is powerful. push_swap does the thinking. checker enforces correctness. It forced me to design properly: Parse CLI arguments safely Detect duplicates Handle both "3 2 1" and 3 2 1 formats