HarryW
Feb 4th, 2001, 07:10 AM
Hi all.
In one of the courses I do at uni we briefly went over 'Big Oh', 'Little Oh', 'Big Omega' and another Greek letter that I've forgotten.
The point seemed to be that you should apply arbitrary constants to some expressions in order to find which category(s) an algorithm falls under, and what the order of the algorithm is for the purposes of comparing algorithms. These arbitrary constants though - they have been a source of much confusion. I don't really see how you can use them to compare two algorithms if they have been picked totally arbitrarily. Is it at all desirable to find optimum values for them (if such optimums exist)?
I hope someone can tell what I'm talking about. I don't think I really know enough about it to use the terms properly.
In one of the courses I do at uni we briefly went over 'Big Oh', 'Little Oh', 'Big Omega' and another Greek letter that I've forgotten.
The point seemed to be that you should apply arbitrary constants to some expressions in order to find which category(s) an algorithm falls under, and what the order of the algorithm is for the purposes of comparing algorithms. These arbitrary constants though - they have been a source of much confusion. I don't really see how you can use them to compare two algorithms if they have been picked totally arbitrarily. Is it at all desirable to find optimum values for them (if such optimums exist)?
I hope someone can tell what I'm talking about. I don't think I really know enough about it to use the terms properly.