Re: Comparing lists - somewhat OT, but still ...

2005-10-16 Thread Paul Rubin
Steven D'Aprano <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > But if you are unlikely to discover this worst case behaviour by > experimentation, you are equally unlikely to discover it in day to > day usage. Yes, that's the whole point. Since you won't discover it by experimentation and you won't discover it by

Re: Comparing lists - somewhat OT, but still ...

2005-10-16 Thread Steven D'Aprano
On Sun, 16 Oct 2005 14:07:37 -0700, Paul Rubin wrote: > The complexity of hashing depends intricately on the the data and if > the data is carefully constructed by someone with detailed knowledge > of the hash implementation, it may be as bad as O(n) rather than O(1) > or O(sqrt(n)) or anything li

Re: Comparing lists - somewhat OT, but still ...

2005-10-16 Thread Steven D'Aprano
On Sun, 16 Oct 2005 20:28:55 +0200, Christian Stapfer wrote: > Experiments > (not just in computer science) are quite > frequently botched. How do you discover > botched experiments? Normally by comparing them to the results of other experiments, and being unable to reconcile the results. You may

Re: Comparing lists - somewhat OT, but still ...

2005-10-16 Thread Paul Rubin
Ognen Duzlevski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > Optimizations have a tendency to make a complete mess of Big O > > calculations, usually for the better. How does this support your > > theory that Big O is a reliable predictor of program speed? > > There are many things that you cannot predict, how

Re: Comparing lists - somewhat OT, but still ...

2005-10-16 Thread Ognen Duzlevski
Steven D'Aprano <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Sun, 16 Oct 2005 15:16:39 +0200, Christian Stapfer wrote: > > It turned out that the VAX compiler had been > > clever enough to hoist his simple-minded test > > code out of the driving loop. > Optimizations have a tendency to make a complete me

Re: Comparing lists - somewhat OT, but still ...

2005-10-16 Thread Christian Stapfer
"Steven D'Aprano" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > On Sun, 16 Oct 2005 15:16:39 +0200, Christian Stapfer wrote: > >> Come to think of an experience that I shared >> with a student who was one of those highly >> creative experimentalists you seem to have >> in mind. He

Re: Comparing lists - somewhat OT, but still ...

2005-10-16 Thread Ron Adam
Christian Stapfer wrote: > It turned out that the VAX compiler had been > clever enough to hoist his simple-minded test > code out of the driving loop. In fact, our VAX > calculated the body of the loop only *once* > and thus *immediately* announced that it had finished > the whole test - the

Re: Comparing lists - somewhat OT, but still ...

2005-10-16 Thread Steven D'Aprano
On Sun, 16 Oct 2005 15:16:39 +0200, Christian Stapfer wrote: > Come to think of an experience that I shared > with a student who was one of those highly > creative experimentalists you seem to have > in mind. He had just bought a new PC and > wanted to check how fast its floating point > unit was

Re: Comparing lists - somewhat OT, but still ...

2005-10-16 Thread Christian Stapfer
"Ron Adam" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Christian Stapfer wrote: > >> This discussion begins to sound like the recurring >> arguments one hears between theoretical and >> experimental physicists. Experimentalists tend >> to overrate the importance of experimental d