On Sun, 19 Aug 2012 10:48:06 -0700, Paul Rubin wrote: > Terry Reedy <tjre...@udel.edu> writes:
>> I would call it O(k), where k is a selectable constant. Slowing access >> by a factor of 100 is hardly acceptable to me. > > If k is constant then O(k) is the same as O(1). That is how O notation > works. You might as well say that if N is constant, O(N**2) is constant too and just like magic you have now made Bubble Sort a constant-time sort function! That's not how it works. Of course *if* k is constant, O(k) is constant too, but k is not constant. In context we are talking about string indexing and slicing. There is no value of k, say, k = 2, for which you can say "People will sometimes ask for string[2] but never ask for string[3]". That is absurd. Since k can vary from 0 to N-1, we can say that the average string index lookup is k = (N-1)//2 which clearly depends on N. -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
