Tag Archives: Big O notation

Would Shlemiel the Painter Optimize Prematurely?

I don’t want to optimize this code prematurely. And “while you’re still writing it” is probably premature. On the other hand, totally ignoring algorithmic complexity is a sure route to a Shlemiel the Painter’s algorithm. Do I really want to just write the whole thing, and then start profiling it to see where the hot […]

On Complexity Versus Efficiency

I sometimes imagine how I would teach certain concepts, if I were put in charge of a class. (Not just in programming, either; many people who know me have said I’d make a great teacher; perhaps I’ve taken it to heart.) One of the concepts in programming that I feel has a particularly poor “ease-of-teaching […]