Robert Kern <robert.k...@gmail.com> writes: > On 9/1/10 4:40 PM, John Bokma wrote: >> Arnaud Delobelle<arno...@googlemail.com> writes: >> >>> Terry Reedy<tjre...@udel.edu> writes:
[...] >>> I don't understand what you're trying to say. Aahz didn't claim that >>> random list element access was constant time, he said it was O(1) (and >>> that it should be part of the Python spec that it is). >> >> Uhm, O(1) /is/ constant time, see page 45 of Introduction to Algorithms, >> 2nd edition. > > While we often use the term "constant time" to as a synonym for O(1) > complexity of an algorithm, Arnaud and Terry are using the term here > to mean "an implementation takes roughly the same amount of wall-clock > time every time". Now that's confusing in a discussion that earlier on provided a link to a page using big O notation. At least for people following this partially, like I do. -- John Bokma j3b Blog: http://johnbokma.com/ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/j.j.j.bokma Freelance Perl & Python Development: http://castleamber.com/ -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
