Algorithmic Thinking
- Algorithms are abstract artefacts.
- They are procedural knowledge.
- In order for a procedure to qualify as an algorithm as computer scientists understand this concept, it must possess the following attributes (as first enunciated by Donald Knuth):
- Finiteness. An algorithm always terminates (that is, comes to a halt) after a finite number of steps.
- Definiteness. Every step of an algorithm must be precisely and unambiguously specified.
- Effectiveness. Each operation performed as part of an algorithm must be primitive enough for a human being to perform it exactly (using, say, pencil and paper).
- Input and output. An algorithm must have one or more inputs and one or more outputs.
- Donald Knuth (who perhaps more than any other person made algorithms part of the computer scientist’s consciousness) once described computer science as the study of algorithms. Not all computer scientists would agree with this ‘totalizing’ sentiment, but none could conceive of a computer science without algorithms at its epicentre. Much like the Darwinian theory of evolution in biology, all roads in computing seem to lead to algorithms. If to think biologically is to think evolutionarily, to think computationally is to form the habit of algorithmic thinking.
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