User blog comment:ArtismScrub/how fast is this?/@comment-30754445-20171227173219/@comment-30754445-20171227183131

In the long run it doesn't really matter if you do that or not.

It won't change the asymptotic growth rate of your "linear arrays". It would just give your function a small head-start, which (hopefully) would be completely negligible when you reach (say) 100-entry arrays.

(basically, it's the difference of getting Foo(n) with a 100-entry array, and getting f3(Foo(n)) with a 99-entry array. If your linear arrays grow any faster than f4(n), it would be a completely negligible difference)