Insertion sort: grow a sorted prefix
This animation shows insertion sort in action: each new value is lifted from the array and slid leftward past larger elements until it settles in place, extending a growing sorted prefix marked below the array. The visual highlights why insertion sort performs very few shifts on nearly sorted input, making it efficient in that case despite its quadratic worst-case behavior. Useful for students learning basic sorting algorithms and comparing best-case versus worst-case performance.
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The prompt that made it
Insertion sort lifts each next value and slides it left past anything bigger, growing a sorted prefix marked under the array; fast on nearly sorted input.
Make the next one in this series
- Compare insertion sort and bubble sort side by side on the same shuffled array
- Show insertion sort's worst-case behavior on a reverse-sorted array with shift counts
- Animate binary insertion sort using binary search to find each element's position
