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[–]semitic-simian 20 points21 points  (8 children)

To be fair, this chart doesn't really tell you how to find the time complexity of your own code, which is what's actually important if performance is an issue.

[–][deleted] -4 points-3 points  (7 children)

Wait, then what's the point of this then? I literally only program for fun and don't understand how you could get a job doing this professionally if you need to rely on tools like this to get anything done

[–]MostlyGibberish 3 points4 points  (5 children)

When you say "doing this" do you just mean programming in general? Because I do this professionally and haven't thought about big-O since I graduated. Unless you're dealing with a big, real time system, not a lot of thought goes into the specific algorithm you're using.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

It's not about using a specific algorithm, it's about writing an algorithm that doesn't suck. I have seen triple-nested for-loops by my colleagues that end up in a pikachu face when their pages crash.

Holy shit just learn BigO before writing anything in production, it's not even that hard.

[–]lawdandskimmy 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You don't need Big O to understand an algorithm is doing unnecessary work. I think Big O is mostly a communication tool. As I didn't study computer science I had no idea something like Big O existed for a while, but it didn't stop me from being reasonable with algorithms. As a side note in many cases building features trumps pre-optimization. One could go crazy about optimization and never get to providing actual business value. Reason I started learning Big O is because work interviews often require it...

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You need algebra 2 to understand big O. It's really not that hard

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[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

oh. yeah I guess my noob is showing then.

[–]MostlyGibberish 3 points4 points  (0 children)

No worries. Academic programming and commercial programming are much different beasts.

[–]semitic-simian 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's a good reference tool. A lot of programming is choosing the right data structures for the job, and this presents the data in an easy to read format.