Why Algorithms?

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An algorithm is a finite sequence of instructions to solve a problem. And a program is computational method implementing algorithms to solve problems. Algorithm is one of essential factors to guarantee the success of a software system.

Quite often there are multiple algorithms to solve a same problem. Certainly we would like to choose good algorithms to solve problems. How to measure if an algorithm is a good one? There are several factors such as effectiveness, correctness, efficiency, complexity, etc. Intuitively, a good algorithm should correctly and effectively solve a problem we have. It should be efficient, running fast and consuming memory space economically. It should be simple and natural. When evaluating algorithms, most time we focus on time and space efficiency of the algorithms.

When a programmer is designing and implementing a program, the construction requires to pay attention to not only essentials but also details and to make decisions when there are multiple solutions too solve the problems. So, programming is an engineering activity. It is important for programmers to study general methods and principles to analyze algorithms.

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