From: Sander Land <sander.land@...>
Date: 2007-04-13T18:08:19+09:00
Subject: Re: Computer Science Math - For the Uninitiated

On 4/13/07, Don Levan <levandon@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello all,
> I am begin stymied  by what looks like math but is greek to me. For
> example, on the first page of the book I am reading (The Algorithm
> Design Manual, b Steven Skinea), there is this description of the
> insertion sort algorithm:
>
> for i = 1 to n - 1 do
>         for j = i downto 2 do
>                 if (A[j] < A[j-1]) then swap(A[j],A[j-1])
>
> I can struggle through it, but I am wondering 1) what branch of math
> is this? Is it algebra or something more complex? And 2) are there
> any good (and accessible) books that will give me a basic
> introduction to the language conventions?

This is not math, but pseudocode, it is different in just about any
book about algorithms.

The Algorithm Design Manual is probably not a very good book to start
with, short explanations and lots of mathematical notations. Try to
find a more accessible book if you don't understand things. An
alternative is just to use google and wikipedia a lot, there are a lot
of free resources.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudocode
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insertion_sort