[MikeTheGreat]

I think the idea is that 'N is on the order of 10 students or so'.

It's stretching the Big Oh notation but it isn't terrible.

I wonder about instead using notation like

N = ~10

[seotut2]

> It's stretching the Big Oh notation but it isn't terrible

I'd say it is terrible. O(10) is O(1), and it doesn't make a lot of sense in this context (measure of growth to represent a scalar).

[zests]

f = O(n) makes no sense either. It should be f ∈ O(n). However, notation serves us and we don't serve the notation. People say "Big O" when they mean "Big Theta".

[jaredsohn]

Which is also the same as O(1000000000) for which data would have different significance.