Algorithm Study FAQ

General Questions

  1. What is the Algorithm Study project?
  2. What is the goal of the Algorithm Study project?
  3. Who are the intended users of the Algorithm Study?
  4. Why would I want to use the Algorithm Study?
  5. Where can I get the source code?
  6. Is the Algorithm Study under active development?
  7. I want to contribute to this project. Where do I start?

General Questions

  1. What is the Algorithm Study project?

    The Algorithm Study project implements a wide variety of algorithms and data structures. The implementations are accompanied by discussion of their uses, big O analysis of their run time and memory use, comparisons with similar algorithms and references to other sources for further study.

  2. What is the goal of the Algorithm Study project?

    The goal of the Algorithm Study project is to provide implementations of as many algorithms and data structures as possible, in a wide variety of languages, comparisons with similar algorithms, discussion of their uses and their Big O run time and memory use properties, and references to additional information.

    By grouping implementations of algorithms together in this manner, it is hoped that others will find this resource a bridge between the theoretical study of algorithms and the practical need to use those algorithms in their projects and studies.

  3. Who are the intended users of the Algorithm Study?

    People looking to increase their knowledge of standard and not-so-standard algorithms and data structures, and software developers or engineers needing practical and working examples of algorithms for use in their applications.

  4. Why would I want to use the Algorithm Study?

    If you are studying algorithms from a theoretical perspective and desire a practical grounding in how those algorithms are implemented or used in real code, the Algorithm Study discusses real uses of each implemented algorithm and shows how the algorithm can be used through test cases.

    If you are doing programming work and need a reference implementation of an algorithm on which to base your work, the algorithms implemented by the Algorithm Study are real implementations with test cases showing they work. Furthermore, since the code is released under the BSD license, these implementations can easily be used in other projects whether they are open source or closed source.

  5. Where can I get the source?

    See the Source Code page.

  6. Is the Algorithm Study under active development?

    Yes! Implementations of additional algorithms are being completed and released on a regular basis.

  7. I want to contribute to this project. Where do I start?

    Great! Welcome to the project!

    The Algorithm Study issue tracker lists many bugs and enhancements to be made. If something there suits your fancy, start working on it and let us know (via the mailing list) that you are doing so. Once you are finished, make a git repository public and tell us where to pull from or send a patch with your changes to the mailing list.

    Or, if there is something you want to see added that is not in the issue tracker, send an email to the mailing list to start a discussion about what you want to do (we don't bite) and we will help figure out a good approach.

    Of course, you will need a copy of the source code on which to work. ;-)