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It's not even just code. I remember once writing a script to generate a large table, only to discover that GCC took forever to compile it as it appeared to have an n^2 time in the size of the file. That can't have been the optimiser because there were no functions. I think I ended up compiling that file with TCC.


Yah, one often doesn't discover the existence of a quadratic algorithm until something like this happens.


The two scariest words in technical English are "accidentally quadratic".


Oh, I don't know about that :-) If we are looking for the two scariest words, "intermittent failure" would be my candidate.


Mine too. I can find the quadratic source, but intermittent failure can suck up all your time.


Ok, it is Halloween. How about we go with "accidentally intermittently quadratic"?

Is that scary enough for ya?




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