Are there are any cases where you would prefer O(log n) time complexity to O(1) time complexity? Or O(n) to O(log n)? Do you have any examples? 23 Answers 23
I understand Big-O notation, but I don’t know how to calculate it for many functions. In particular, I’ve been trying to figure out the computational complexity of the naive version of the Fibonacci sequence: int Fibonacci(int n) { if (n <= 1) return n; else return Fibonacci(n – 1) + Fibonacci(n – 2); } What … Read more
What is the difference between Big-O notation O(n) and Little-O notation o(n)? 5 Answers 5
Sometimes I see Θ(n) with the strange Θ symbol with something in the middle of it, and sometimes just O(n). Is it just laziness of typing because nobody knows how to type this symbol, or does it mean something different? 9 Answers 9
Given that strings are immutable in .NET, I’m wondering why they have been designed such that string.Substring() takes O(substring.Length) time, instead of O(1)? i.e. what were the tradeoffs, if any? 5 Answers 5 UPDATE: I liked this question so much, I just blogged it. See Strings, immutability and persistence The short answer is: O(n) is … Read more
I have gone through Google and Stack Overflow search, but nowhere I was able to find a clear and straightforward explanation for how to calculate time complexity. What do I know already? Say for code as simple as the one below: char h=”y”; // This will be executed 1 time int abc = 0; // … Read more
Project Euler and other coding contests often have a maximum time to run or people boast of how fast their particular solution runs. With Python, sometimes the approaches are somewhat kludgey – i.e., adding timing code to __main__. What is a good way to profile how long a Python program takes to run? 3 31
I am learning about Big O Notation running times and amortized times. I understand the notion of O(n) linear time, meaning that the size of the input affects the growth of the algorithm proportionally…and the same goes for, for example, quadratic time O(n2) etc..even algorithms, such as permutation generators, with O(n!) times, that grow by … Read more
What is the most concise and efficient way to find out if a JavaScript array contains a value? This is the only way I know to do it: function contains(a, obj) { for (var i = 0; i < a.length; i++) { if (a[i] === obj) { return true; } } return false; } Is … Read more
I’d prefer as little formal definition as possible and simple mathematics. 4 43
