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You shouldn't use a word that can carry a precise mathematical meaning in a sentence that literally uses mathematical notation in order to speak precisely and t
by cvoss 1y ago
You shouldn't use a word that can carry a precise mathematical meaning in a sentence that literally uses mathematical notation in order to speak precisely and then expect readers not to interpret the word in the precise mathematical way.
- blharr 1y agoI somewhat agree, but for lack of a better word, what would you use? Quadratically doesn't have the same punch
- School-Cotton 1y ago“Dramatically” ?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- remram 1y ago"a lot"
- jjmarr 1y ago"by a factor of `n`" also sounds impressive.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- jrochkind1 1y agoIf you just mean "a lot" in a non-technical sense, there are plenty of words available. enormously. immensely. tremendously. remarkably. incredibly. vastly.
- bobbylarrybobby 1y ago“From quadratic to linear” seems fine.
- bobbylarrybobby 1y ago“From quadratic to linear” or “... to constant” seems fine.
- morepedantic 1y agoAlgorithmic? Big-O? Polynomially? Linear improvement? O(n^2) to O(n)? Or if you want to be less mathematically precise: enormous improvement? Using exponential in this way in any context is a faux pas, because it's highly ambiguous, and requires context for clarification. But in this situation the context clearly resolved to the mathematically accurate definition, except it was used in the other way.
- globular-toast 1y agoRuntimes dropped precipitously.
- ndriscoll 1y agoQuadratically doesn't have the same punch because it is actually exponentially less than exponentially. So doing it for extra punch (as opposed to not knowing the correct word) in a technical context would just be lying. It'd be like a paper saying they had a result with p less than one in a trillion for "extra punch" when they actually had p=0.1.
- IshKebab 1y agoYou should if you expect your readers to be normal humans who understand obvious context, and not pedantic HN readers who understand obvious context but delight in nit-picking it anyway.
- Dylan16807 1y agoYou can, but it's not should.
- morepedantic 1y ago>pedantic Who the fuck do you think is the intended audience for an article about an algorithm in `git bundle create`? I spent approximately two minutes of my life trying to figure out where the O(n^2) algorithm was being invoked in such a way that it influenced an exponential. Exponential was bolded in the same sentence as a big-O. 50/50 troll/author oversight.
- saagarjha 1y agoMaybe not 'morepedantic
- globular-toast 1y agoAh yes because "normal humans" know what O(n^2) means but damnit they are going to use exponential wrong.
- tomjakubowski 1y agoI'm a normal human and I know what O(n^2) means. There are dozens of us.
- sneak 1y ago“Words mean things.” If you can’t agree with this, then you shouldn’t be speaking or writing, IMO. Those who argue that words that mean different things are actually equivalent have no business dealing with language.
- morepedantic 1y agoI understood every word, phrase, and sentence you wrote. But I did not understand your point. Still, I got the meaning of your words, so presumably you're satisfied.
- hskalin 1y agoI find the whole article rather poorly written. Most likely using an LLM.
- morepedantic 1y agoEspecially when the colloquial meaning derives from the mathematical meaning.
- MyFedora 1y agoWe simplify the big O notation in computer science. This is standard practice.
- rovr138 1y agoJust drop the constants, it doesn't matter /s Production systems running and melting here...