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Agreed. However it would probably be better to show someone some code with a loop in a loop and ask them why it could potentially be a problem. If they can tel

by boyter 13y ago

Agreed. However it would probably be better to show someone some code with a loop in a loop and ask them why it could potentially be a problem. If they can tell you in Big O notation why its bad for large inputs then great, but so long as they can tell you why that's what really matters.

jtheory 13y ago
Right -- Big O notation is a useful formalization of a thinking process that in practice usually includes more information. That is -- anytime you write a loop, you'd better think about what's inside it (and how long those things will take), and -- given the amount of data you might be sending through that loop -- if that's a problem or not. I want someone to notice that they're making a remote call in a loop when it could be batched, cached, etc.. I don't want them to spend 2 days optimizing an algorithm tinkering with a bit of text that yes, is inefficient, but in practice is only going to take a few milliseconds anyway and isn't a hotspot.