Execution speed question

[Matthew Fitzgibbons]

Iain King wrote:
> On Jul 25, 4:22 pm, Matthew Fitzgibbons <eles... at nienna.org> wrote:
>> It seems like the probability calculation applies to all three equally,
>> and can therefore be ignored for the simulations.
> 
> The probability affects (1) more.  My reasoning for this being:  as
> probability gets lower the number of times you have to loop over the
> list increases.  (1) always loops over the full list, but with each
> successive iteration (2) and (3) are looping over smaller and smaller
> lists.  In the end this adds up, with (1) becoming slower than (2),
> even though it starts out quicker.
> 
> Iain
> --
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
> 

I meant the _calculation_ of the probability affects all three equally, 
not the value itself. As your simulations show, different probabilities 
affect the algorithms differently; I'm talking about the algorithm to 
arrive at the probability value.

-Matt