Re: Questions from a Beginner.
- Posted by Critic May 20, 2009
- 1220 views
But you've still left out a key fact, which is that the big-O notation doesn't tell us everything about an algorithm. You still need to consider the size of n and the coefficient. This is what actually profiling your code does for you.
Of course, you're correct that in general quicksort will beat, say, bubble sort. But in the context of an application, that's merely a micro-optimization. And maybe not the most important one. If you only ever sort 3 or 4 items at a time, you're probably not losing a whole lot using a bubble sort. Please, tell me why I'm wrong and/or lying. I can't wait.
No, you're right. But you still misrepresent the issue somewhat: In EU this O(n) vs. O(1) is not a deliberate design tradeoff that can be made by the programmer, because often O(1) cannot be achieved at all with the given semantics. It seems not even a consious tradeoff by the language designer, but a big design flaw that has been overlooked for years.
Wow, if you were pushing some other programming language, that definition would be a great description of how you've acted on this forum. Since you brought up the FUD angle, and the shoe seems to fit, are you pushing some other programming language.
I've alread said it multiple times: The whole EU community would be better off using Lua or Python instead of trying to catch up.
