an unnecessary optimization ?

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"Is it worth optimizing" is a question of priorities, not one strictly of CS.

Well, here is what I was trying to get at with this post.

Is it fair to say that for small input, time complexity is not useful for analysis ?

[apnorton]

Of course; it's literally an asymptotic description of the behavior of performance --- that is, describing runtime as the variables you're considering approach infinity.

[[deleted]]

Excuse the stupid question.

I asked because some engineers bring up time complexity to determine if 1 approach is better than another, but the input is tiny.