Algorithms

Abstract

It must certainly be apparent to you by now that software engineering requires significantly more consideration than simply programming or, more idiomatically, “coding.” In the previous chapter, you were introduced to an engineering strategy meant to help optimize the performance and minimize operational cost risk in your programs, which was that of determining the appropriate data structures to use for a given scenario. In this chapter, you will be introduced to a set of algorithms that will provide strategies to further optimize your code. An algorithm is a defined set of instructions meant to solve particular problems with contextually similar circumstances, agnostic of the programming language used to solve the problem. An example of a problem that could be solved with algorithms is the Rubik’s Cube puzzle game. Given a particular combination of different colors on each side of the cube, a discrete set of steps can be enacted to solve part of the puzzle. With enough executed combinations of different algorithms to solve color patterns for either an individual side or a layer of the cube, you can solve the entire puzzle.