The complex meanings of tag:complexity

Question

The complexity has a number of meanings. Some of which are already covered by other tags.

In particular, the 100 or so questions seem to fall into one of three groups:

Really about big-o
Really about cyclomatic-complexity
Hand wavy complexity.

The proposal:

Retag all the complexity questions about big o, as big-o
Retag all the complexity questions about cyclomatic complexity, as cyclomatic-complexity.
Leave the hand wavy complexity questions there
- Change the tag wiki to reflect that this is about hand-wavy questions.
- Get SE to update the tag guidance on complexity to mention the other two tags.

Shouldn't this question be tagged with the "complexity" tag? — BenSmith, Nov 5, 2014 at 16:12
Since they are so closely related, does it make sense to have separate tags for big-o and friends? Would a single tag bachmann-landau-notation make sense? — Jörg W Mittag, Nov 6, 2014 at 0:27
@JörgWMittag possibly, though we could also make use of tag synonyms. That said, I think that most people are going to search for Big O. Another question would be if algorithm-analysis should be cleaned up and made a synonym of big-o (or vice versa). — user40980, Nov 6, 2014 at 0:32
Complexity (which you call a bit handwavy) is more than computational complexity, which is more than algorithm analysis, which is more than only big O. They should not be made synonyms - although a cleanup (retagging) might be appropriate. — Bergi, Nov 17, 2014 at 17:33
@Bergi there are indeed computational complexity, and algorithm analysis complexity... but there's also questions like What is the rule for simplicity over complexity? and How to know whether to create a general system or to hack a solution and Simplicity-efficiency tradeoff and Fields vs method arguments which are tagged complexity, but a bit hand wavy in their use of the word. — user40980, Nov 17, 2014 at 17:52

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-12 07:31:46Z

1

The proposal to disambiguate the complexity tag is a good one.

Having discrete tags for "big-o" and "cyclomatic complexity" would I'm sure be useful for people who have questions about these specific topics.

As for "hand wavy complexity" (an amusing term(!) for story point complexity estimation which you got from here), I'd suggest using the tag "story points", as story points are used to represent the complexity of a story in Agile estimation (see this article here for more information).

edited Apr 12, 2017 at 7:31

CommunityBot

1

answered Nov 5, 2014 at 2:17

BenSmith

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The other option was wibbly wobbly complexity.
– user40980
Nov 5, 2014 at 2:19
@MichaelT Lol! :) FYI, I don't have enough reputation to create a "story-points" tag in the linked question. I reckon it would be a good tag to have available for the aforementioned type of question.
– BenSmith
Nov 5, 2014 at 2:21
1

The key to a tag being created and sticking around with value is to find a few questions that would fit. This does two things - it helps verify that there isn't already another tag out there, and it also makes sure the tag sticks. Single use tags are deleted after six months (if this question is tagged with story-points, and nothing else is for six months, the tag is deleted. If two questions exist with story-points tag, it doesn't get deleted). So, find a couple questions that should get the story-points tag, post a meta question asking for the tag to be added to them, and it will be done.
– user40980
Nov 5, 2014 at 3:30
@MichaelT I know that. There are no suitable tags currently...
– BenSmith
Nov 5, 2014 at 11:57

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