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A visual introduction to big O notation

(samwho.dev)
688 points samwho | 2 comments | 24 Aug 25 07:39 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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laurent_du ◴[25 Aug 25 18:29 UTC] No.45017202[source]▶
Beautiful article but that's not what big O means. The author seems to be describing something that is usually called (upper case) Theta. Big O is an upper bound.
replies(2): >>45017463 #>>45017525 #
1. forrestthewoods ◴[25 Aug 25 18:47 UTC] No.45017463[source]▶
This “well ackchyually“ is not particularly helpful. You’re not wrong. But this argument was lost 30 years ago. The programming field has been using “Big O” loosely.
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2. windward ◴[26 Aug 25 09:16 UTC] No.45024157[source]▶
I've had conversations at work where the difference was important. Mass adoption of quicksort implies I'm not the only one.