Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

Computer Science Introduction to Data Structures Building a Linked List Linked Lists Operations

Time Complexity for Insertion in Different Languages

The videos state that in Python, the time complexity for Insertion on a Linked List is O(n) because of the need to search. When I look at Big O Notation cheat sheets, they state the average and worst time complexity for an insertion or deletion of a Single Linked or Doubly Linked List is O(1).

Is the time complexity expected to be different in all or most languages?

1 Answer

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,172 Points

Complexity is a conceptual issue, and should not differ between languages.

If you look carefully at the code comments, you'll see this: "Insertion takes O(1) time but finding node at insertion point takes O(n) time.".

My guess is that the cheat sheets you found are only considering the basic insertion time.