| Most of the professional programmers that I've encountered are not well prepared to tackle algorithm
design problems. This is a pity, because the techniques of algorithm design form one of the core practical
technologies of computer science. Designing correct, efficient, and implementable algorithms for realworld
problems is a tricky business, because the successful algorithm designer needs access to two
distinct bodies of knowledge:
l Techniques - Good algorithm designers understand several fundamental algorithm design
techniques, including data structures, dynamic programming, depth-first search, backtracking, and
heuristics. Perhaps the single most important design technique is modeling, the art of abstracting a
messy real-world application into a clean problem suitable for algorithmic attack.
l Resources - Good algorithm designers stand on the shoulders of giants. Rather than laboring from
scratch to produce a new algorithm for every task, they know how to find out what is known
about a particular problem. Rather than reimplementing popular algorithms from scratch, they
know where to seek existing implementations to serve as a starting point. They are familiar with a
large set of basic algorithmic problems, which provides sufficient source material to model most
any application. |
