Big O Notation

Here's my favorite Big O analogy: Let's say you're making dinner for your family. O is the process of following a recipe, and n is the number of times you follow a recipe. O - you make one dish that everyone eats whether they like it or not. You follow one recipe from top to bottom, then serve (1 recipe). <-- How I grew up O(n) - you make individual dishes for each person. You follow a recipe from top to bottom for each person in your family (recipe times the number of people in your family). O(n^2) - you make individual dishes redundantly for every person. You follow all recipes for each person in your family (recipe times the number of people squared). O(log n) - you break people into groups according to what they want and make larger portions. You make one dish for each group (recipe times request)

PTP - Pigeon Transfer Protocol

So Big O is not a rapper?

I might be too stupid to be a software developer. Unfortunately, I have learned this after 20 years of being a software developer. There are some things you need to know to impress people interviewing you that you may never touch on the job.

oh my god for the first few minutes I thought it is an ad.

Thanks so much, this 8 minute video made it way more clear than several hours of lectures and readings

What a simple but clear explanation on Big O. I finally found you. Many videos start off with even more complex mathematical terms that are difficult to understand by themselves. You start very simply. Magnificent! How about one on Tractability to help.

Gayle!!! I just started reading cracking the coding interview and what a pleasant surprise to stumble upon this channel. Great educator and author. Thanks for the video :-)

Although you left some other necessary o notations, your lectures are great! I'm glad i found your lectures, straight to the point and an understandable dialect.

Good video. People say McDowell's lessons aren't important and are never used outside of interviews, but big O notation is actually important. I learned this the first time I used nested for loops.

Clicked this because it was 8 mins, straight to the point, no unnecessary knowledge. Loved it

Great explanation of Big(O). This is important for any programmer to understand the efficiency of the algorithm. I know many excellent programmers who don't have CS degrees and may not know the academic description of Big(O). But they know it intuitively through experience. Having said that Bg(O) is an easy concept to understand, requires practice to know how to assess efficiency and scalability of the code.

This makes me realize Colt Steele's a legend. I came here after watching his tuts on big O and I was surprised at how much I already knew

Even though I've had to survive from programming for all sorts of clients for almost 15 years, I now find myself having to learn these things if I want to settle down, get a job with a six figure salary. Truly nothing wrong with this, even though I've been told that I'm not a senior programmer. Which is correct, but I'm a senior in relationship development, sales, customer support, tolerance, fixing programming issues, doing whatever it takes to get the job done, and building real world applications. It's hard to tell an interviewer that has no real world experience these things without telling them to F off. I've disregarded my big Ego, and have been studying these things, taking online courses for Golang, and I now feel more confident that I can compete with my vocabulary and understanding of the computer science mumbo jumbo. It's truly an exciting step because after you learn just the bits and pieces, you indeed put yourself in a position to earn a wonderful living as a programmer. Wish you all the best of luck on your endeavors.

Thanks for giving an explanation that someone without much knowledge of maths understands by giving practical examples :-)

that introduction really helped put this subject into perspective

Such a revolutionary explanation of Big O.

Wow, Thank you sooo much! This video helped me a lot for studying for my finals.

Excellent explanation! Thanks for simplifying Big O concepts.

HOLY SHIT, THANK YOU SO MUCH. So wish you were my lecturer cause this made so much more sense than anything he ever said!