Performance: sets vs dicts.

[John Bokma]

Robert Kern <robert.kern at gmail.com> writes:

> On 9/1/10 4:40 PM, John Bokma wrote:
>> Arnaud Delobelle<arnodel at googlemail.com>  writes:
>>
>>> Terry Reedy<tjreedy at 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

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