chaospatternsHow GitLab decreased repo backup times from 48 hours to 41 minutes with a fix to Git
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.
I feel like there is something wrong with this sentence.
I’m not a native speaker, but would agree that it sounds imprecise. To my understanding, that’s a polynomial reduction of the time (O(n^2) to O(n): quadratic to linear) and not an exponential speed-up (O(2^n) to O(n): exponential to linear). 🤷
Colloquially, “exponentially” seems to be used synonymously to “tremendously” or similar.
and not an exponential speed-up (O(2^n) to O(n): exponential to linear)
Note that you can also have an exponential speed-up when going from O(n) (or O(n^2) or other polynomial complexities) to O(log n). Of course that didn’t happen in this case.
good point