At risk of being pedantic, you seem to be using big O to mean “approximately” or... | Hacker News

Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit

		luhn on March 10, 2024 \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: S3 is files, but not a filesystem At risk of being pedantic, you seem to be using big O to mean “approximately” or “in the order of”, but that’s not what it means at all. Big O is an expression of the growth rate of a function. Any constant value has a growth rate of 0, so O(100k) isn’t meaningful: It’s exactly the same as O(1).

wetmore on March 11, 2024 | [–]

You're right technically, it's an abuse of notation that isn't uncommon. My physics profs would do it in college.

returningfory2 on March 11, 2024 | [–]

Fair point, I guess the notation ~100k, ~10ms would be better.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact