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The tag currently has two tags remapped to it: and . I can imagine the reason is not amongst those is to distinguish between questions about asymptotics (in general) and the notation itself (and possibly its definition too); this seems to be what the tag description also hints at:

Questions about asymptotic notations such as Big-O, Omega, etc.

However, is there a good reason is not synonymous with (as in, e.g., Wikipedia)? Does merit its own tag? Its description currently reads:

Big O Notation is an informal name of the "O(x)" notation used to describe asymptotic behaviour of functions. It is a special case of .

So, is a special case of , which, in turn, is a special case of ? How are they related to the tag?

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In the context of CS, "Big-Oh Notation" is probably a synonym of "Landau Notation", even though there is more than O to Landau notation. I'd propose to get rid of the extra tag.

Both are subsets of asymptotics, which covers different types of bounds and limit processes. I think it makes sense to keep the different tags.

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  • $\begingroup$ I agree. Big-O and Landau are synonyms, at the level we're dealing with. But I think it's worthwhile distinguishing between, e.g., "Please help me give an asymptotic analysis of this algorithm" (where the answer will probably be expressed using Landau notation but the question is about much more than that) and "How can I tell if f(n)=O(g(n))?" (which is solely about relationships between [mathematical] functions). $\endgroup$
    – David Richerby
    Jun 24, 2019 at 14:47
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    $\begingroup$ @DavidRicherby I've been less vigilant about it recently, but for a long time I rigorously retagged the former with algorithm-analysis+runtime-analysis, leaving landau-notation and/or asymptotics only on such questions that were about those things. I still think this distinction is meaningful and helpful, but unfortunately many teachers seem to disagree. $\endgroup$
    – Raphael Mod
    Jun 24, 2019 at 19:52

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