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Class 01 reading notes

Pain and Suffering

This article from code fellows speaks about the price of pain. Mental, physical and emotial pain will be experienced in this class.

I’ll have to forge my own solutions and do my own research to figure things out. Collaborating with my co-classmates, and exit my comfort zone to succeed. But with the pain will come growth.

Create a story based off my experience with these aspects:

• What’s your perspective?
• Why are you doing this?
• Do you want what comes at the end of this journey?
• Are you doing this for you?

You’re here because you chose to invest in a different life. A better life.

Beginners guide to Big O notation

Big O

Big O notation is used in Computer Science to describe the performance or complexity of an algorithm. Big O Specifically describes the worst-case scenario.

Different kinds:

• O(1) describes an algorithm that will always execute in the same time (or space) regardless of the size of the input data set.
• O(N) describes an algorithm whose performance will grow linearly and in direct proportion to the size of the input data set.
• O(N2) represents an algorithm whose performance is directly proportional to the square of the size of the input data set. (Deeper nested iterations will result in O(N3), O(N4) etc.)
• O(2N) denotes an algorithm whose growth doubles with each additon to the input data set.

Logarithms

Binary search is a technique used to search sorted data sets. It works by selecting the middle element of the data set, essentially the median, and compares it against a target value. If the values match it will return success. If the target value is higher than the value of the probe element it will take the upper half of the data set and perform the same operation against it. Likewise, if the target value is lower than the value of the probe element it will perform the operation against the lower half. It will continue to halve the data set with each iteration until the value has been found or until it can no longer split the data set.