Algorithm Design Techniques
Now, with all the components of the algorithmic
problem solving in place, how do you design an algorithm to solve a given
problem? This is the main question this book seeks to answer by teaching you
several general design techniques.
What is an algorithm design technique?
An algorithm design technique (or
“strategy” or “paradigm”) is a general approach to solving problems
algorithmically that is applicable to a variety of problems from different
areas of computing.
Check this book’s table of contents and you
will see that a majority of its chapters are devoted to individual design
techniques. They distill a few key ideas that have proven to be useful in
designing algorithms. Learning these techniques is of utmost importance for the
following reasons.
First, they provide guidance for designing
algorithms for new problems, i.e., problems for which there is no known
satisfactory algorithm. Therefore—to use the language of a famous
proverb—learning such techniques is akin to learning to fish as opposed to being
given a fish caught by somebody else. It is not true, of course, that each of
these general techniques will be necessarily applicable to every problem you
may encounter. But taken together, they do constitute a powerful collection of
tools that you will find quite handy in your studies and work.
Second, algorithms are the cornerstone of
computer science. Every science is interested in classifying its principal
subject, and computer science is no exception. Algorithm design techniques make
it possible to classify algorithms according to an underlying design idea;
therefore, they can serve as a natural way to both categorize and study
algorithms.
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