re: #167 klys

There has been absolutely none of that and a ton of prove that this algorithm is O(n lg n) or whatever. It has been a very frustrating class so far, and the most recent homework just exacerbates it, plus they have been absolutely shitty about getting graded homeworks/solutions to the distance students - as in I have received nothing back yet.

being able to evaluate an algorithm’s big O run time is very useful:

space, RAM and disc, is cheap these days, but the fastest algorithm will always be the fastest algorithm. knowing how to figure out the big O will allow you to choose the best algorithm by saying things like “you know, with a dataset of size N and a runtime of big O of such and such, it will take about 2 days for this algorithm to crunch it but only 10 hours for the other algorithm. as ‘big data’ crunching becomes more and more popular, being able to figure runtime becomes a more and more valuable skill

as for proofs, however, i have never heard of a software engineer needing to think about proofs in my 28 years in the profession

i must recommend strongly, once again, the MIT analysis of algorithms course, available on the you tube, heavy on proofs but really great if you ignore that part, and also the SUNY course on the same topic, perhaps even better because it basically ignores proofs and concentrates on the USEFUL stuff