[Tutor] Python and algorithms

[Kent Johnson]

On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 8:17 AM, C.T. Matsumoto <c.t.matsumoto at gmail.com> wrote:
> Kent Johnson wrote:

>> But is that what you are asking for, or are you trying to sharpen your
>> problem-solving skills? Many progamming problems are solved by simple
>> loops and data structures without explicitly using any algorithms that
>> you would find in a book such as this.
>
> I'd say sharpening my problem solving skills. I thought that was often
> tied to building an algorithm. The example Walter Prins provided I
> thought fit what I was looking for.

I don't see Walter Prins' example.

It's true that solving a problem often involves creating an algorithm
in a broad sense. The formal study of algorithms studies specific
techniques and algorithms that have proven to be useful to solve many
hard problems. In my experience most programming problems do not
require use of these formal algorithms, at least not explicitly. Some
are used by Python under the hood, for example dicts are hash tables,
heapq is a priority queue, etc. It is very useful to know when to
apply these but you don't have to understand the details of how they
work.

Unfortunately I can't point you to a good resource, maybe that would
be a good project for me...

Kent