This will make it easier for you to follow the concepts being taught. The material will be extracted from Chapter 1 of the text. Why do we need to formally study the design and analysis of algorithms. An algorithm is a precise sequence of computational steps to correctly solve a problem for all possible input patterns. Formal design of algorithms makes it possible to arrive at efficient solutions to problems.
Analysis makes it possible to compare two or more solution approaches to the same problem.
We will look at the running example of sorting in this class. See the pseudo-code and the example given in the text. In order to analyze the algorithm, we need to figure out the running time of the algorithm. Asymptotic analysis shows how the run time grows as a function of the input size. We will look at worst case run time.