title: What does it mean for N to be small compared to the overall size of the collection?
body: <p>I'm new to python-3x and I'm having a hard time understanding what it means for N to be smaller compared to the overall size of the collection:
  "If you are looking for the N smallest or largest items and N is small compared to the overall size of the collection, these functions provide superior performance. Underneath the covers, they work by first converting the data into a list where items are ordered as a heap." <a href="https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/python-cookbook-3rd/9781449357337/ch01.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/python-cookbook-3rd/9781449357337/ch01.html</a></p>