Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by flebron 4186 days ago
Of course the models I mentioned are not self-contradictory, I've no idea what you mean by that.

Your statement was "If the numbers can be arbitrary in size, then you can't compare them in constant time". I was merely pointing out that this is not a true statement.

1 comments

flebron, you do not seem to be reading my posts and I am getting a bit annoyed.

Again, for the third time: you cannot "assume" that reading the digits of a number takes O(n), but reading the digits of two numbers to compare them takes O(1). That is absolutely, obviously true. Your response, that you can "assume" the latter is true as part of the model of computation is just wrong, plain and simple. There's nothing else to say about it.

The original claim directly implies this, and if you can't address that point, then just save us both the time and don't respond.