Thread 12 (Tradeoffs) continues here from Chapter 17.
Big-O is the formal language for expressing the tradeoffs named in Chapter 17. In Chapter 17 you learned that time and space are the two dimensions. In this chapter you learn the vocabulary for naming positions on those dimensions. “O(n log n) time, O(n) space” is a statement about a tradeoff. You cannot make tradeoffs you cannot name. Thread 12 continues through to algorithm selection in Book 2, Chapter 20 — where you will choose between algorithms by comparing their Big-O profiles against specific workload characteristics.