Talk:Run-time analysis

message: Thank you, Groupthink, for writing this material. But I wonder if it should not be part of the Computational complexity page. See my comment on that discussion page. If you are keen, that page could benefit from your efforts. Scottcraig 17:22, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is this page necessary? 

message: I strongly support this merger.  I should have caught that that page existed and punched up that page instead of creating this page.  Ah well.  Ironically, whoever created the other page cited the exact same textbook I used for my reference. :-) At any rate, I'd push for the content of analysis of algorithms to be merged into run-time analysis and not vice-versa. Groupthink 23:38, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Content-wise tis article is much better, however I think it may be a good idea to threat memory-space analysis in the same article. —Ruud 00:05, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks.  I did make a brief mention of run-space analysis at the end. Groupthink 00:54, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

text: Agree with merging analysis of algorithms into this article.  Iknowyourider (t c) 16:00, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

text: Agree with merging analysis of algorithms into this article. laufinjackass
I'm going on a University WikiBreak starting on the 21st.  If I can't get the merger done by then, then any editor who'd care to take over has my blessing. Groupthink 21:40, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Should the merger not be in the other direction? Run time analysis being a section in Analysis of Algorithms. Skippydo 08:52, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I was under the impression that the consensus was AA should be merged with RTA but retitled "Analysis of Algorithms"... but I leave it in the hands of the vox editori Groupthink 15:31, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I think RTA should be a subsection of AA, since it is one type of AA. Ozgurozkan 20:13, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree - most techniques used for RTA are used even for space analysis. This article is much more complete, while the other is, in practice, a stub, but may be used for the introduction. Btw, the merge is still to perform after an year... --Blaisorblade (talk) 15:13, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger with [[analysis of algorithms]] 

message: Note that Big O notation can only be applied to run-times that are monotonically increasing.  The following algorithm, expressed as pseudocode, cannot be said to have a Big O classification:
 1    if n is prime
 2        return n
 3    else if n is even
 4        while n > 1
 5            n = floor(n / 2)
 6    else
 7        while n > 0
 8            n = n - 50
The above example definitely cannot be expressed using Θ-notation, but I'm unsure if Big-O and Ω are formally restricted to monotonically increasing functions or not. Groupthink 06:12, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Quick-sort comes to mind. It's already mentioned in this section. Skippydo 16:14, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed material from orders of growth

message: Quoting:The specific amount of time to carry out a given instruction ... can be considered to be an abstract unit of time
This very power statement in made but not, in my opinion, utilized. Since we are dealing with abstract units of time the values T_1,\dots, T_7 can be said to be bounded by 1 unit. Therefore our running time is at most,
:4+\sum_{i=1}^n i\leq 4+\sum_{i=1}^n n=4+n^2=5n^2.
Thoughts? Skippydo 16:21, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that's a great way to sum up that section or illustrate by alternate example.  What you did there is of course the quick way to determine the runtime order. :-) I intentionally took a more roundabout and formal route to fully elucidate that even though the inner loop iterates from 1 to i and not 1 to n, the nested loops still run in O(n2) time.  I like your use of summation notation though, and I'll be bold and incorporate that right now. Groupthink 18:18, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Evaluating run-time complexity section 

message: The article heading "run-time analysis" suggests an analysis performed at run time - as in "Performance analysis".
(I have now added a 'do not confuse with' sentence at start of the existing article to help with this).
The wording in the article did not make it sufficiently clear that this is an estimation technique, not related to an algorithm's actual performance. If merging is to take place I suggest it is NOT with this article's current name!
There were, until recently, almost no XREF's between important related topics:- 
* Algorithmic efficiency
* Performance analysis
* Run-time analysis
* Binary search
* Branch tables
etc
I have added some XREF's but there may be many more that also relate to performance generally that I have not discovered yet.ken (talk) 06:29, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Run-time analysis is bad name