Algorithms and Programming Vocabulary Review

Flashcards covering key vocabulary from the Algorithms and Programming curriculum.

Unreasonable Time

Algorithms with exponential or factorial efficiencies are examples of algorithms that run in an unreasonable amount of time.

Assignment Operator

Allows a program to change the value represented by a variable.

Element

An individual value in a list that is assigned a unique index.

List

An ordered collection of elements.

String

An ordered sequence of characters.

API

Application Program Interface - specifications for how functions in a library behave and can be used.

Exponential/Factorial Efficiency

Examples of algorithms that run in an unreasonable amount of time.

Nested Conditional

Consists of conditional statements within conditional statements.

Selection

Deciding which steps to do next.

Modulus

Evaluates to the remainder when a is divided by b.

Random Number Generation

Generates and returns a random integer from a to b, inclusive, with each result equally likely to occur.

Arithmetic Operators

Include addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and modulus operators.

Parameter

Input variables of a procedure used as a placeholder for values that will be passed through the function.

String Concatenation

Joins together two or more strings end-to-end to make a new string.

Data Abstraction

Manage complexity in programs by giving a collection of data a name without referencing the specific details of the representation.

Logical Operator

Operators NOT, AND, and OR, which evaluate to a Boolean value.

Infinite Loop

Occurs when the ending condition will never evaluate to true.

Substring

Part of an existing string.

Sequential Programming

Program statements run in order, from top to bottom.

Heuristic

Provides a 'good enough' solution to a problem when an actual solution is impractical or impossible.

Iteration

The process of accessing each item in a list one at a time.

Argument

The values of the parameters when a procedure is called.

Return Statement

Used to return the flow of control to the point where the procedure was called and to return the value of expression.

Decidable Problem

A decision problem for which an algorithm can be written to produce a correct output for all inputs.

Undecidable Problem

A problem for which no algorithm can be constructed that is always capable of providing a correct yes-or-no answer.

Optimization Problem

A problem with the goal of finding the 'best' solution among many.

Simulation

A representation that uses varying sets of values to reflect the changing state of a phenomenon.

Binary Search

A search algorithm that starts at the middle of a sorted set of numbers and removes half of the data.

Linear Search

A search algorithm which checks each element of a list, in order, until the desired value is found.

Conditional Statement

A statement that affects the sequential flow of control based on the value of a Boolean expression.

Reasonable Time

Algorithms with polynomial efficiency or lower that are said to run in a reasonable amount of time.