[tsimionescu]

Your example is nice, but extremely informal, as these are all constant numbers, while O/Theta/Omega (and o, omega, theta) are about functions.

I think the most important thing that needs to be clarified though is that algorithmic complexity is first and foremost a function, `WorseCaseComplexity(size of input) = max number of steps for any input of that size`. This function is often then classed into a "complexity class" using O/Theta/Omega etc, but that is only done for the sake of easier comparison of complexities between algorithms.