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From: heller@utdallas.edu (Steve Heller)
Subject: Re: Teaching sorts [was Re: What's the best language to start with?]
Date: 1996/08/18
Message-ID: <4v63ju$iqp@news.utdallas.edu>#1/1
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references: <4umeot$re2@hil-news-svc-2.compuserve.com>
 <dewar.839831192@schonberg> <4v2fb9$lpj@news.utdallas.edu>
 <4v2qkd$40f@news1.mnsinc.com>
organization: The University of Texas at Dallas
newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.ada
Date: 1996-08-18T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


huang@mnsinc.com (Szu-Wen Huang) wrote:

>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.
  How about by looking at the algorithm and determining that it makes
two passes through the keys for each key position, which is therefore
O(n) given a fixed maximum key length?


Steve Heller, author and software engineer
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/steve_heller