From Big NO to Big O

Becoming familiar with the concept of Big O notation as a bootcamp grad.

This week’s Illustrator attempt at making a larger than life “O”.

Having no CS background and the highest level of math I’ve taken be integrated algebra, algorithms was a subject that I was dreading. During my time at the Flatiron School, I thoroughly enjoyed DOM manipulation and was excited whenever anything frontend related came up, but there was always the looming world of algos that I knew I would eventually have to tackle. My fear came from not being able to grasp the concept of Big O and becoming lost in the logical process of algos. Don’t even get me started on getting an algorithm on the spot for technical interviews. This week I’ve decided to take a step out of my comfort zone (frontend/design) and finally get acquainted with the world of algorithms.

Me as soon as I graduated and realized that it was time to face my fear.

Defining Big O Notation

Picture this, you’re in your home and you suddenly have a craving for pie. You bust out your nan’s secret key lime pie recipe and it’s heaven. You decide to bake your nan’s pie for your friends, but suddenly someone else says that THEIR pie is better than yours. Suddenly, war breaks out because there are too many pies that all claim they are better than the other. In efforts to prove that…