alt Hacker NewsReal big brain moment in the comments
>Can we say that since every real-life data structure size is bounded by some constant, it is O(1)? If not, why?
>>You may, yes.
Very powerful thinking coming from someone who is "a software performance expert. He ranks among the top 2% of scientists globally (Stanford/Elsevier 2025) and is one of GitHub's top 1000 most followed developers"
Replies
lenerdenator • today at 8:54 PM
> Stanford
Mmmmm. Yep. There's yer trouble.
It's true you can. Just as you can say that you can enumerate all memory states in a real computer so it can be modelled as a finite state machine. These asymptotic models aren't real (our world as we experience it is finite and bounded) and exist as models from which to gain insights which we can transfer back. I love this argument BTW a classic that usually comes up in these discussions.