Package topics.introduction

package topics.introduction

Introduction to algorithms, computational thinking, and fundamental data structures.

This package is the starting point for learners new to algorithm design. It covers two complementary areas:

• Algorithm introduction — what an algorithm is, how to measure its correctness and efficiency, and how to improve naive solutions step by step.
• Principles & data structures — the foundational building blocks (recursion, search, core data structures) required before studying advanced topics.

Algorithm Introduction

• Correctness — does the algorithm always produce the right answer?
• Efficiency — how does running time grow with input size (Big-O)?
• Stress testing — comparing a naive solution against an optimised one on random inputs to detect bugs.

Principles & Fundamentals

• Recursion — base cases, inductive reasoning, call-stack mechanics.
• Search algorithms — sequential search, sentinel search, binary search.
• Core data structures — arrays, linked lists, stacks, queues, sets, priority queues (see topics.introduction.examples).

Classes in This Package

• HelloWorld — minimal sanity-check program
• MaxPairWiseProduct — O(n²) naive max-product
• MaxPairWiseProduct2 — first optimised variant
• MaxPairWiseProduct3 — second optimised variant
• MaxPairWiseProduct4 — third optimised variant
• MaxPairWiseProduct5 — fourth optimised variant
• MaxPairWiseProduct6 — O(n) optimal solution
• MaxPairWiseProductRandomNumbers — stress-test harness
• Factorial — iterative and recursive factorial
• GetAdditionFromList — sum of a list of numbers
• GetMaximumFromList — maximum of a list of numbers
• Search — sequential and binary search demonstrations

Related Packages

Package	Description
topics.introduction.examples	Worked examples illustrating core Java data-structure APIs.

Classes

Class	Description
Factorial	To calculate the factorial of a number
GetAdditionFromList	To get the addition of a list of numbers
GetMaximumFromList	To get the maximum of a list of numbers
HelloWorld	Just to show a small example of how the project is structured
MaxPairWiseProduct	Computes the max pairwise product among different numbers E.g.: 7 3 6 => 42 However, in this example we will only work with two integer numbers
MaxPairWiseProduct2	Computes the max pairwise product among different numbers E.g.: 7 3 6 => 42 However, in this example we will only work with two long numbers
MaxPairWiseProduct3	Computes the max pairwise product among different numbers E.g.: 7 3 6 => 42 We will load the numbers from MaxPairWiseProductRandomNumbers.txt
MaxPairWiseProduct4	Computes the max pairwise product among different numbers E.g.: 7 3 6 => 42 We will load the numbers from MaxPairWiseProductRandomNumbers.txt
MaxPairWiseProduct5	Computes the max pairwise product among different numbers E.g.: 7 3 6 => 42 We will load the numbers from MaxPairWiseProductRandomNumbers.txt
MaxPairWiseProduct6	Computes the max pairwise product among different numbers E.g.: 7 3 6 => 42 We will load the numbers from MaxPairWiseProductRandomNumbers.txt
MaxPairWiseProductRandomNumbers	Generates a test data file of random integers for the MaxPairWiseProduct problem.
Search	To use different methods for searching numbers in an array