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Just read 1.2.11.1 in #Knuth's #TAoCP. Realize no teacher (even in grad school) ever gave me formal math defn of O(f(n)). Easier that way!
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@bkuhn There's lots of things that maths teachers say but never explain. They just assert things.
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@ddevine, at grad CS level, I was never presented w/ formal definitions of O(f(n)) & Θ(f(n)). I even took Complexity Theory! !disturbing
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@bkuhn That is disturbing. I think however that I have had it explained more than once. I still *really* suck at maths though.
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@bkuhn I learned it as "the fastest growing term w/o coeff in the expression for the number of ops used by an algorithm with n elements"
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@bkuhn I also learned that the coefficient is almost always dominant with small data sets and the O() only matters for big data sets.
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@bkuhn Actually, I don't think that was the definition. That was the explanation. Never mind.
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@nearyd i.e., like a limit the tricky part is finding it, not testing whether a candidate complies.
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@bkuhn Wow, that *is* #disturbing. In my uni we got the formal definition during our first algorithms course.
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@bkuhn Hey, you are the victim, not the perpetrator. Anyway, seems to have worked out ok in the end. :-)
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