Why do programmers write n=O(n^2)?
- by Jaakko Seppälä
I studied algorithms in a book Cormen & al. "Introduction to algorithms". In the fourth printing, on the page 43 defines
O(g(n))={f(n):there exists positive constants c and n_0 s.t. 0<=f(n)<=cg(n) for all n=n_0}
I reported this as a bug in the book www-site because this leads to notation like n=O(n^2) and suggested alternative given in http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=296&t=31517&start=20 . It looks like my bug report has not been accepted. Why the programmers won't renew the notation?
