How is "bucketizing" relevant to problem solving in computer science?


84 104 101 32 97 110 115 119 101 114 32 105 115 32 53 48 33
There's a way to make this meaningful; find it

Write an algorithm (i.e., step-by-step instructions) for something you do every day. Assume that the algorithm will be executed a robot who, unlike a human, cannot "read between the lines," so take care to be precise! An algorithm with 15 – 50 steps is plenty.

Suppose that an engineer excitedly runs up to you and claims that they've implemented an algorithm that can sort n elements (e.g., numbers) in fewer than n steps. Give some thought as to why that's simply not possible and politely explain.

In the context of computer science (or problem solving more generally), what, in your own words, is abstraction? And why is it a helpful technique?

Suppose that some company has just sent your company a huge list of customers. You respond to that company with a strongly worded note because you only wanted the phone number of one customer, Mike Smith. They, in turn, reply to you suggesting that you simply find him quickly using binary search. Explain why it might not, in fact, be possible to use binary search on the huge list.

Why might a programmer use a "linked list" instead of an "array" to store data in a computer program?