advanced practice · coding problem
Read a recall–latency curve
ANN curve: 95% recall @ 8ms, 99% @ 25ms, brute force 100% @ 200ms. Which point do you ship for interactive search?
The mechanism
Every ANN knob trades recall for speed/memory. The honest artifact is a curve: recall on the y-axis, latency (or QPS, or memory) on the x-axis, with brute force as the recall=1.0 anchor.
Expected evidence
95%/8ms if UX budget ~10ms; document regression vs brute force.
Try this drill in the practice workspace →
Hints when you need them
- Plot recall on Y, latency on X.
- Brute force anchors truth.
Watch for these mistakes
- Reporting a single recall number with no latency context
- Comparing indexes at different recall operating points