tyes node is one of the better collections of the various advanced sorting techniques that I've seen. However you may want to have also have a look at one of PM's earliest nodes, and the canonical Schwartzian Transform (ST), which is the term generally given to most of these techniques in books. There is also the Guttman Rosler Transform (GRT) which is IMO a specialisation of the ST, and of which class I would say that tyes variant belongs to, although I suspect that perhaps it deserves its own name, possibly the Tye Transform? :-)