Talk:Analysis of algorithms

Reduction of trivia

Latest comment: 7 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

This article has many trivial statements, eg "an inefficient algorithm can significantly impact system performance". Who is kidding whom? Or please consider the gem "A program can take seconds, hours, or even years to finish executing". And it has been tagged as needing better sourcing since 2010. A more serious problem is that the practical issue of worst case performance vs average performance is not clarified as it should have been. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 15:38, 4 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Subset of concept described as concept itself

Latest comment: 5 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Analysis of algorithms is a field, not a process of evaluation of only one of algorithms' features (complexity) as stated here.

I believe this name for the field was coined by Donald Knuth in his book The Art of Computer Programming as discussed in its preface:

"We might call the subject of these books “nonnumerical analysis.” Computers have traditionally been associated with the solution of numerical problems such as the calculation of the roots of an equation, numerical interpolation and integration, etc., but such topics are not treated here except in passing.

...

The results of research in nonnumerical analysis are scattered throughout numerous technical journals. My approach has been to try to distill this vast literature by studying the techniques that are most basic, in the sense that they can be applied to many types of programming situations. I have attempted to coordinate the ideas into more or less of a “theory,” as well as to show how the theory applies to a wide variety of practical problems.

Of course, “nonnumerical analysis” is a terribly negative name for this field of study; it is much better to have a positive, descriptive term that characterizes the subject. “Information processing” is too broad a designation for the material I am considering, and “programming techniques” is too narrow.

Therefore I wish to propose analysis of algorithms as an appropriate name for the subject matter covered in these books.

This name is meant to imply “the theory of the properties of particular computer algorithms.”"

Time and space complexity are only two simplified properties (which normally should be assessed for optimistic, pessimistic and average scenarios - from which calculation of average scenario is also an activity part of this field).

But other properties include identification of subroutines, coroutines, interpretive routines, I/O, information structures involved, order of items stored in computer memory and many more. Okaminski (talk) 17:11, 11 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

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