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From: huang@mnsinc.com (Szu-Wen Huang)
Subject: Re: Teaching sorts [was Re: What's the best language to start with?]
Date: 1996/08/16
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Date: 1996-08-16T00:00:00+00:00
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Steve Heller (heller@utdallas.edu) wrote:
[snip]
:   As I understand it, the O() notation indicates how the time to
: process varies with the number of elements. E.g., if 1000 elements
: take 1 second and 2000 elements take 2 seconds to sort, the sorting
: algorithm is O(n). According to this definition, the distribution
: counting sort is O(n).
[snip]

Wrong order.  An O(n) program where n=1,000 that takes 1 second to
complete should be able to finish n=2,000 in 2 seconds, not the other
way around.  In other words, you can't derive time complexity by
timing an algorithm, *especially* with only two samples.