June 2020
Intermediate to advanced
382 pages
11h 39m
English
Content preview from 40 Algorithms Every Programmer Should Know
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Characterizing the complexity of the problem
Over the years, the research community has divided problems into various categories according to their complexity. Before we attempt to design the solution to a problem, it makes sense to first try to characterize it. Generally, there are three types of problems:
Type 1: Problems for which we can guarantee that a polynomial algorithm exists that can be used to solve them
Type 2: Problems for which we can prove that they cannot be solved by a polynomial algorithm
Type 3: Problems for which we are unable to find a polynomial algorithm to solve them, but we are also unable to prove that a polynomial solution for those problems is impossible to find
Let's look at the various classes of problems: ...