CSI 2110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Pseudocode
12 Sep 2017
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Document Summary
An algorithm is a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem in a finite amount of time. We focus on the worst case running time because this is easier to analyze. Worst case running time is crucial to applications such as games, finance, and robotics. Experimental studies have limitations like need to implement, limited set of inputs, hardware and software environments. Theoretical analysis uses a general methodology that uses a high-level description of the algorithm. It characterizes running time as a function of the input size. It takes into account all possible inputs and is independent of the hardware and software environment. Primitive operations: low level computations independent from the programming language can be identified in pseudocode. Examples of primitive operations: calling a method and returning from a method, arithmetic operations, comparing two numbers. By inspecting the pseudocode we can count the number of primitive operations executed by an algorithm.
