An anime and a computer science notation.
Anime
A mecha anime about Paradigm City, a city with amnesia, the negotiator Roger Smith, his butler Norman, his android Dorothy, and his obnoxious mecha Big O.
Big O Time and Space Notation
Compare to Big Omega and Big Theta.
Count how many steps an algorithm would take in relation of the size of its input to analyze the efficiency of an algorithm. Compare the growth of two algorithms to find the faster one. For example, merge sort is faster than bubble sort because O(nlog(n)) grows much more slowly than O(n2.
Programmers don't use it often, but understanding it helps them write better algorithms.
O(1) is a constant time operation. O(n) is a linear time operation.
Examples
(DEV285x)