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the input record is valid, go
Computer to the routine that computes
scientists look net pay from gross pay.
Repeat these steps for each
for simplicity, employee. Then go to the
speed and routine that prints checks."
Tbe gross-to-net and check-
reliability.
Basics:
writing routines would have
their own algorithms.
Sometimes
they find REALITY INTRUDES
Of course, it isn't quite that
elegance. simple. Ifit were, the study
of algorithms would not
Algorithms
have become a major branch
of computer science and the
subject of countless books
and doctoral theses.
But it's not hard to imag-
ine computer engineers
in the 1950s thinking they
had pretty much finished
the ¡ob. They had invented
memory and other computer stored-program electronic
resources, and are easy to computers, and languages
As the mind
understand and modify. The like Fortran and Cobol to
learns to under-
very best ones are invariably run on them, and they had
stand more complicated largely banished the agony
combinations of ideas, called "elegant," although
Al-Khwarizmi may not have of assembly language pro-
simpler formulae soon gramming. In fact, software
used that term for his for-
reduce their complexity. pioneers such as Grace Hop-
mulas for solving quadratic
- Aittoine-Nicholas per saw compilers, and the
equations.
de Condorcet. 1794 algorithms that instructed
An algorithm can be
thought of as the link be- them, as such an advance-
ment — they could "under-
T
HE WORD algorithm tween the programming
was derived from language and the applica- stand" English — that they
the name Al- tion. It's the way we tell a named the first computer
Khwarizmi, a 9th- Cobol compiler how to gen- to use one the Universal
century Persian mathema- erate a payroll system, for
tician and author of The example.
Compendious Book on Cal- Although algorithms
culation by Completion and can end up as thousands
Balancing. But nowadays of lines of computer code,
the word most often applies they often start as very
to a step-by-step procedure high-level abstractions,
for solving a problem with a the kind an analyst
computer. might hand to a pro-
An algorithm is like grammer.
a recipe, with a discrete For example, a
beginning and end and a lengthy routine in that
prescribed sequence of steps payroll system might
leading unambiguously to have started out with
some desired result. this algorithmic speci-
But coming up with the fication: "Look up the
right answer at the end of a employee's name in
program is only the mini- the Employee Table.
mum requirement. The best Ifit is not there, print
algorithms also run fast, the message, 'Invalid em-
The word algorithm is named after
are sparing in their use of ployee.' If all other data on mathematician Al-Khwarizmi.