Algorithm
An algorithm is a finite, precisely specified procedure for performing a computation, transforming inputs into outputs, or solving a problem.
Fabulous Adventures in Data Structures and Algorithms
An algorithm is a finite, precise procedure for solving a problem or computing a result.
- How it is used
- Frames problem solving as finite procedures whose usefulness depends on the problem and the data they operate on.
- How deep it goes
- Defines algorithms and their complexity, then illustrates cost growth; it does not derive a general implementation method.
- Examples
- Uses ad selection, array access, integer summation, map coloring, Sudoku, and Game of Life optimization.
- What you can do after
- Evaluate/understand it by identifying a procedure and comparing how its resource cost grows with problem size.
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How Computers Make Books
An algorithm is a finite, explicit sequence of instructions for carrying out a computation or solving a problem.
- How it is used
- Uses explicit steps to turn text searching into a procedure a computer can follow.
- How deep it goes
- Works through a complete pseudocode search and comparison procedure, including bounds, matching, failure, and recursive advancement.
- Examples
- Traces horses through “houses and horses and hearses,” locating the match at position 11.
- What you can do after
- Build it from scratch as a pseudocode text search that tests each possible starting position.
Related concepts
- backtrackingincludes · Backtracking is a technique that returns to earlier decisions or states along a path to reconsider choices, explore alternatives, or reconstruct a solution.
- breadth-first searchincludes · Breadth-first search is a graph or tree traversal algorithm that explores nodes in nondecreasing order of their distance from a starting node.
- unsupervised learningincludes · Unsupervised learning is a machine-learning approach that discovers patterns, structure, or representations in data without labeled target outputs.
- language modelproduces · A language model is a computational model that represents patterns in linguistic tokens to estimate sequence probabilities and predict or generate language from context.
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