Finding the complexity of an algorithm

We need an effective way to measure algorithms. That way we will find out whether our algorithm is effective or not. An algorithm will work more slowly on slower machines and more quickly on faster machines, so computation time is not an effective way to measure algorithms. Algorithms should rather be measured as a number of steps. We call that the order of the algorithm. We also need to find out the best case, worst case, and average case scenarios for the order of the algorithm. This will give us a clearer picture of how our algorithm will be applied to small sets of data and larger sets of data. Complex algorithms or algorithms of a higher order should be avoided, as these will increase the number of steps that the device will need to do to perform the task, and hence will slow down the application. Also, debugging becomes difficult with such algorithms.

Getting ready

You need to have a working copy of Visual Studio installed on your Windows machine...