Worse is better. Is there an example?

Question

Is there a widely-used algorithm that has time complexity worse than that of another known algorithm but it is a better choice in all practical si

Answer 1

This example would be the answer if there were no computers capable of storing these large collections.

Presumably the size of the collection was 641K.

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When working in the technical computing group for BAE SYSTEMS, which looked after structural and aerodynamic code for various aircraft, we had a codebase going back at least 25 years (and a third of the staff had been there that long).

Many of the algorithms were optimised for performance on a 16bit mainframe, rather than for scalability. These optimisations were entirely appropriate for 1970s hardware, but performed poorly on larger datasets on the 32 and 64 bit systems which replaced it. If you're choosing something with worse scalability which works better on the hardware you are currently working on, be aware that this is an optimisation, and it may not apply in the future. At the time those 1970s routines were written, data size we put into them in the 2000s was not practical. Unfortunately, trying to extract a clear algorithm from those codes which then could be implemented to suit modern hardware was not trivial.

Short of boiling the oceans, what counts as 'all practical situations' is often a time dependent variable.