"Consider what O(n) means: nothing. That’s right, if somebody tells me something is O(n) it truthfully tells me nothing on its own." You, my good sir, are tota

"Consider what O(n) means: nothing. That’s right, if somebody tells me something is O(n) it truthfully tells me nothing on its own." You, my good sir, are totally mistaken. O(n) is a set of functions that grow at most linearly with n, ignoring constants. O(n) is a rich mathematical notation that tells a _lot_ of things on its own. If someone tells you that something 'is' O(n) what they actually mean is that they have a function that is _an element_ of O(n). Again, a very concise and powerful statement on its own. Of course you can't say "this tree is O(n)" because a tree is not a function. That'd be like saying "this apple is dumb". Don't blame the notation, blame the user.