Performance analysis
Analyzing the performance of an algorithm is an important part of its design. One of the ways to estimate the performance of an algorithm is to analyze its complexity.
Complexity theory is the study of how complicated algorithms are. To be useful, any algorithm should have three key features:
- Should be correct: A good algorithm should produce the correct result. To confirm that an algorithm is working correctly, it needs to be extensively tested, especially testing edge cases.
- Should be understandable: A good algorithm should be understandable. The best algorithm in the world is not very useful if it’s too complicated for us to implement on a computer.
- Should be efficient: A good algorithm should be efficient. Even if an algorithm produces the correct result, it won’t help us much if it takes a thousand years or if it requires 1 billion terabytes of memory.
There are two possible types of analysis to quantify the...
