Understanding computational complexity
Heavenly Father
Infinite
Perfect
Unfathomable
Not a drop of Jesus blood was wasted
Not a single strand of hair falls without your consent
You eternal nature is mysterious
And your days are more than an O(n!) algorithm.
Our O(n) days provides us with a sense of continuity
And a false impression that they will tend to the infinite
But our days are counted
In your eyes, the number of our days are like an O(1) algorithm
Short. Fast. Fleeting.
Teach us how to count our days as we wrestle counting the operations in our algorithms
As we seek to find an efficient solution to the problems we face in our discipline
Teach us that we are limited and Your creation has boundaries that should be respected
The algorithms we build require a great deal of power
And power is a scarce resource
We come to you for wisdom to grasp these concepts so we can build models that reflect our stewardship
We come to you for the right disposition as these concepts are not so intuitive
The Towers of Hanoi will teach us about the timeless of your nature
How long would take for 64 disks to be moved from one rod to another?
That is no time for you. But for us, that’s eternity.
God of order, how to sort things out?
What is the best way to put elements in the right place so our search may be O(log n)?
Why not taking the easiest path, and use the simpler algorithm?
May we have the resilience to learn the Quicksort algorithm and to be able to implement it with no struggles
May we dive into the many trees and their traversing, insertion and searching methods as we navigate our decisions in life.
Holy Lord, help us in our desire to count perfectly the number of operations in our algorithms
And lead us into humility, for the complexity of algorithms requires that we only look at the big picture, and not into the details
As we code our loops, or define a new data structure to hold our important data, may we don’t get staggered in inefficient ways of modeling your world through our algorithms
Amem.