Theory

Welcome back to the System Design series! In this post, we will explore the concept of caching, a powerful technique used to enhance the speed and performance of applications. Caching plays a critical role in optimizing data retrieval and ensuring a smooth user experience. What is Caching? Caching is a technique where systems store frequently accessed data in a temporary storage area, known as a cache, to quickly serve future requests for the same data. This temporary storage is typically faster than accessing the original data source, making it ideal …

Boolean Algebra and introduction with examples. A key concept to determine logic in computer programming as well as mathematical problems.

A queue is a linear data structure working on First In First Out policy. But some use cases can require different solutions. We can create different queue types with the same basic idea. This post describes more about them

Radix Sort is an unconventional sorting technique that does not work based on comparison. It works best when all the input elements of a list has the same number of characters.

Bucket Sort is a sorting technique which puts limitations on the input set to get an improved performance. But, before we start learning about this, let us take a quick recap. This is essential so that you understand what are the use cases of Bucket Sort. The sorting techniques that work in an average time complexity of are: Selection Sort Insertion Sort Bubble Sort Some sorting techniques that have an average time complexity of are: Merge Sort Quick Sort Counting Sort is a special sorting technique that does not work …

An array is the most basic data structure one can think of. It may seem very easy to use and in a lot of my posts we have been solving problems using arrays. However, if you are just getting started with programming this post is probably for you. I would like to cover some of the basic concepts that makes this data structure so desirable and easy to use. If you have been programming for a while now this post is probably not written for you. Read along keeping that …

There can be several aspects when you think about analysis of algorithms. You may be writing a large scale application where you have to decide between two choices. You may be trying to submit a solution to some online competition and you want a higher score, or probably you may just want to write fewer lines of code. Analysis during an Interview Let’s say you are appearing for an interview. The person who is interviewing you gives you a problem to solve. He or she is not just interested in …

As soon as you hear the word ‘Big O’, does your mind go “Oh my god! Oh no! This again?” The next thing following it would be time complexity and what not. Suddenly, your brain starts getting this confusing signals and you lose track of what is happening. If you have felt this at some point of time while learning programming, then I want to tell you that you are not alone. In fact, you are proceeding in the right direction. But all these notations can start to get overwhelming …

The first thing that comes to our mind on hearing the word recursion is doing a thing over and over again. But how can you expect to achieve a solution to a problem by repeating the same thing over and over again. In this post we would be understanding exactly that. Algorithmic paradigms are a way to solve a problem, and recursion is one of them. Some of the other ways are: Brute Force Divide and Conquer Greedy Dynamic Programming So, what is Recursion? Sometimes a good image helps to …

Time complexity is an important criteria when determining the quality of an algorithm. An algorithm is better if it produces the same result in a less time for the same input test cases. However, one must take care of the type of input data used. Some input data can give you false positives. Let us take an example to understand this better. You have an algorithm that is sorts a list of numbers. If the input data you provide to this algorithm is already sorted. Then this algorithm gives you …