And this is why O() notation drops constants. 0(bits) or O(bits/8) aka bytes are the same thing. It's also worth pointing out that in standard comparison sorts, the comparison itself is technically linear to radix too, but is treated as constant. I get why it's dropped but it's worth knowing.
Exactly. You can try to compare two bytes, but really you are comparing 8 bits, if you thought about it algorithmically. Maybe those steps are 100% parallel. But it's irrelevant to the big O. You are measuring number of steps, and it's intended to be hardware independent.
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If you have a theoretical computer with single-bit registers, sure. Quicksort is also quite slow on such an computer.
And this is why O() notation drops constants. 0(bits) or O(bits/8) aka bytes are the same thing. It's also worth pointing out that in standard comparison sorts, the comparison itself is technically linear to radix too, but is treated as constant. I get why it's dropped but it's worth knowing.
Exactly. You can try to compare two bytes, but really you are comparing 8 bits, if you thought about it algorithmically. Maybe those steps are 100% parallel. But it's irrelevant to the big O. You are measuring number of steps, and it's intended to be hardware independent.
Big O is hardware independent.