Types of Algorithms

A list of algorithm approaches you can use to solve many problems.

Brute Force

Also referred to as exhaustive search because it is a naive approach that looks at all possible solutions for the problem and chooses the best solution.

Divide and Conquer

There are two components to this algorithm. The first step is to determine if you can split your current problem into smaller sub-problems and then combine smaller sub-problems to find the answer.

Decrease and Conquer

This approach is used when you only have one sub-problem, but you can filter the input by a simpler function in order to decrease the amount of complexity of the problem.

Greedy Approach

This algorithm is used to find the approximate best answer for hard problems. What it does is at a given time, it will take the locally optimal choice with the intent for finding the optimal solution.

Dynamic Programming

Another approach of splitting up a complex problem into overlapping sub-problems, using the answer for the sub-problems to answer the initial problem. This usually involves saving the answer to certain sub-problems to be used later.

Backtracking

Backtracking algorithms can be used when you are finding all answers that satisfy a certain constraint. It will build its solution as long as it satisfies the condition, and throw it out once it does not.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Uncle Bob's Clean Architecture

Image
The basis of my current understanding of architecture comes from the brilliant mind of Robert C. Martin (Uncle Bob). You can find the original post through his blog , which I strongly encourage you to read. In this post I'll try to summarize some of the key points I've understood from his post. Clean Architecture Source Clean architecture is a design used to emphasize the structure and relation of your various code components to promote the idea of Dependency Rule , such that "source code dependencies only point inwards" . Clean architecture is able to promote this by defining that your software system consists of various layers , that can be organized in such a way that the layers point in one direction, and a dependency graph will not have circular reference. The reason this is important is because it allows you to keep closely code related, and increase clarity of how components fit into your system. Explaining the Layers We can really separate out this
Read more

C4 Model: Describing Software Architecture

Image
The point behind a presentation of Visualizing Software Architecture , by Simon Brown, was that we need to standardize the way software developers communicate with each other in respect to our discussions of software architecture. As part of Simon's consultation, one exercise he gave to software architects was a simple task to white board the architecture of a software system. The results he received varied immensely, and there was never a defacto standard format that he received from this exercise. When inspecting the feedback from the participants, the general answer was that it was easy to come up with the design, but difficult to properly put their ideas onto paper, or white board in this case. White Board Example, c4model.com Simon sought to start a movement by defining a set of organizational rules to help us describe our software architecture with a set of standard terminologies. His work has let to C4 Model , which stands for C ontext, C ontainers, C omponents,
Read more

Multi-Tenant Design: The Basics

Image
As your software system begins to grow and become a successful, you may find yourself at a place where you will want to monetize your software by allowing other companies to use it. One such design that will come in handy is called the Multi-Tenant design, and it allows you to license your software to other companies, allowing them to use your software system for through some contract. You manage the system, and they are merely an entity within it, a tenant. Source At its core, a multi-tenant design is driven by the idea that each tenant contains an identifier, which is then passed through with each request or action. By including this information, the system will know what behavior or data set to pull from. Traditionally the tenant identifier is GUID  that is transferred through HTTP requests as a HTTP header, x-tenant-id . The value is then kept within the thread context, and used to determine the configuration of a request, as well as the data it can access. Data should ei
Read more