PseudocodeIn computer science, pseudocode is a plain language description of the steps in an algorithm or another system. Pseudocode often uses structural conventions of a normal programming language, but is intended for human reading rather than machine reading. It typically omits details that are essential for machine understanding of the algorithm, such as variable declarations and language-specific code. The programming language is augmented with natural language description details, where convenient, or with compact mathematical notation.
CoinductionIn computer science, coinduction is a technique for defining and proving properties of systems of concurrent interacting objects. Coinduction is the mathematical to structural induction. Coinductively defined types are known as codata and are typically infinite data structures, such as streams. As a definition or specification, coinduction describes how an object may be "observed", "broken down" or "destructed" into simpler objects. As a proof technique, it may be used to show that an equation is satisfied by all possible implementations of such a specification.
Depth-first searchDepth-first search (DFS) is an algorithm for traversing or searching tree or graph data structures. The algorithm starts at the root node (selecting some arbitrary node as the root node in the case of a graph) and explores as far as possible along each branch before backtracking. Extra memory, usually a stack, is needed to keep track of the nodes discovered so far along a specified branch which helps in backtracking of the graph. A version of depth-first search was investigated in the 19th century by French mathematician Charles Pierre Trémaux as a strategy for solving mazes.
Loop variantIn computer science, a loop variant is a mathematical function defined on the state space of a computer program whose value is monotonically decreased with respect to a (strict) well-founded relation by the iteration of a while loop under some invariant conditions, thereby ensuring its termination. A loop variant whose range is restricted to the non-negative integers is also known as a bound function, because in this case it provides a trivial upper bound on the number of iterations of a loop before it terminates.
TimsortTimsort is a hybrid, sorting algorithm, derived from merge sort and insertion sort, designed to perform well on many kinds of real-world data. It was implemented by Tim Peters in 2002 for use in the Python programming language. The algorithm finds subsequences of the data that are already ordered (runs) and uses them to sort the remainder more efficiently. This is done by merging runs until certain criteria are fulfilled. Timsort has been Python's standard sorting algorithm since version 2.3.
Hybrid algorithmA hybrid algorithm is an algorithm that combines two or more other algorithms that solve the same problem, either choosing one based on some characteristic of the data, or switching between them over the course of the algorithm. This is generally done to combine desired features of each, so that the overall algorithm is better than the individual components. "Hybrid algorithm" does not refer to simply combining multiple algorithms to solve a different problem – many algorithms can be considered as combinations of simpler pieces – but only to combining algorithms that solve the same problem, but differ in other characteristics, notably performance.
Algorithmic paradigmAn algorithmic paradigm or algorithm design paradigm is a generic model or framework which underlies the design of a class of algorithms. An algorithmic paradigm is an abstraction higher than the notion of an algorithm, just as an algorithm is an abstraction higher than a computer program. Backtracking Branch and bound Brute-force search Divide and conquer Dynamic programming Greedy algorithm Recursion Prune and search Kernelization Iterative compression Sweep line algorithms Rotating calipers Randomized i
