Algorithm Design Strategies

Alpha-beta pruning is a tree search algorithm that seeks to decrease the number of nodes that are evaluated by the minimax algorithm

Recursion occurs when the definition of a concept or process depends on a simpler or previous version of itself.

Dynamic programming (DP) is both a mathematical optimization method and an algorithmic paradigm.

In computer science and operations research, approximation algorithms are efficient algorithms that find approximate solutions to optimization problems (in particular NP-hard problems) with provable guarantees on the distance of the returned solution to the optimal one.

Backtracking is a class of algorithms for finding solutions to some computational problems, notably constraint satisfaction or enumeration problems, that incrementally builds candidates to the solutions, and abandons a candidate ("backtracks") as soon as it determines that the candidate cannot possibly be completed to a valid solution.

Branch-and-bound (BB, B&B, or BnB) is a method for solving optimization problems by breaking them down into smaller subproblems and using a bounding function to eliminate subproblems that cannot contain the optimal solution.

In computer science, brute-force search or exhaustive search, also known as generate and test, is a very general problem-solving technique and algorithmic paradigm that consists of systematically checking all possible candidates for whether or not each candidate satisfies the problem's statement.

In computer science, divide and conquer, originally a political maxim, designates an algorithm design paradigm.

A greedy algorithm is an algorithm which, at each step, makes the choice that is locally optimal, and subsequently does not reconsider past choices.

In mathematical optimization and computer science, heuristic (from Greek εὑρίσκω eurísko "I find, discover") is a technique designed for problem solving more quickly when classic methods are too slow for finding an exact or approximate solution, or when classic methods fail to find any exact solution in a search space.

A randomized algorithm is an algorithm that employs a degree of randomness as part of its logic or procedure.