Ask HN: Why is big O often used in CS when omega or theta should be used?

2•amichail•8mo ago

Do most people not know about omega and theta or perhaps they intentionally misuse asymptotic notation?

Comments

adrianN•8mo ago

Finding lower bounds is generally more difficult.

amichail•8mo ago

People often use big O notation in all cases including for lower bounds.

adrianN•8mo ago

BigO for lower bounds is plain wrong

numpad0•8mo ago

Those aren't in the ASCII table.

compressedgas•8mo ago

I've found some people on a well known QA site to be so strict with big-O notation that I don't use it anymore and instead only refer to constant, linear, quadratic time and so on. Even when O(1), O(n), O(n^2) would be actually easier to write even if they are technically wrong.

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