Abstract
A programming problem may admit a variety of solutions that are all in perfect compliance with the specification. Yet, we may have a strong preference for one over the other. By far the most relevant criterion for distinguishing between the programs is the time it takes to execute them. One has to be careful in these matters, though, as illustrated by the following example. Assume that we have two programs PA and PB that each solve our programming problem. We have two machines available, and measuring of execution times of the two programs reveals that they take 3 and 6 seconds on MA, and 6 and 3 seconds on MB, respectively.
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© 1993 Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.
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van de Snepscheut, J.L.A. (1993). Efficiency of Programs. In: What Computing Is All About. Text and Monographs in Computer Science. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-2710-6_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-2710-6_9
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-7639-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-4612-2710-6
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