[DamonHD]

Here comes an unpopular nitpick: "... we traced the issue to a 15-year-old Git function with O(N²) complexity and fixed it with an algorithmic change, reducing backup times exponentially."

Uh no you didn't. Not possible. At most a polynomial reduction is possible else complexity theory needs a re-write.

(OK, yes, k could be doing some heavy lifting here, but I doubt it.)

If you are going to quote a maths formula then please don't use "exponetially" to mean "lots".

I stopped reading there: I don't want to have to read each word and wonder if they actually meant it, or it's just bad hype.

[nayak]

OP here. Feedback is always welcome, I did mean exponentially in the colloquial sense. I do see how it is confusing here, will change it.

[serial_dev]

You can’t use exponentially in the colloquial sense in a post about software performance.

If my barista says that his new coffee is exponentially better, it’s ok to use it colloquially.

If my git hosting provider writes about an impactful performance improvement, it’s not.

[DamonHD]

Thank you.

(I don't think that anyone should use "exponentially" that way: it is an art term with a specific and particular meaning, so find another word if you mean something else! Like misusing specific legal or sporting terms...)

[taftster]

Which term is appropriate here? What would you suggest? (honest question)

[DamonHD]

"hugely" or "a lot" or "to O(XXX)" whatever the new XXX complexity is.

[taftster]

"to O(xxx)" is a good idea, in terms of keeping it mathematical and accurate. I like that best. "hugely" makes me giggle, because I really hear "bigly" when I see/hear it.

[ctxc]

Art term?

[wizzwizz4]

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/term_of_art

[ctxc]

Ah, thanks. I could only think of art as in literal, artistic art.

[kccqzy]

If you have that tendency, you just need to think of TAOCP, this industry's best distillation of intellectual achievement, with the word "art" in its name.

[DamonHD]

I'm disappointed that the page has not been fixed...

[bombela]

I can forgive exponential as a figure of speech. You missed when they describe using a map for the side effect of [key] dedupliction.

Instead of saying "set". The code itself uses the type "strset".