Chapter 1. Getting Started
Faster and efficient information retrieval is the primary objective of most computer programs. Data structures and algorithms help us in achieving the objective by processing and retrieving data faster. Information retrieval can easily be integrated with algorithms to answer inferential questions from data such as:
- How are sales increasing over time?
- What is customer's arrival distribution over time?
- Out of all the customers who visit between 3:00 and 6:00 PM, how many order Asian versus Chinese?
- Of all the customers visiting, how many are from the same city?
In the efficient processing of the preceding queries, especially in big data scenarios, data structures and algorithms utilized for data retrieval play a significant role. This book will introduce primary data structures such as lists, queues, and stacks, which are used for information retrieval and trade-off of different data structures. We will also introduce the data structure and algorithms evaluation approach for retrieval and processing of defined data structures.
Algorithms are evaluated based on complexity and efficiency, where complexity refers to an algorithm design which is easy to program and debug, and efficacy ensures that the algorithm is utilizing computer resources optimally. This book will focus on the efficiency part of algorithms using data structures, and the current chapter introduces the importance of data structure and the algorithms used for retrieval of data from data structures.
