11. Computer Science Thinking: Recursion, Searching, Sorting and Big O

Objectives

  • Learn the concept of recursion.
  • Write and use recursive functions.
  • Determine the base case and recursion step in a recursive algorithm.
  • Learn how the system handles recursive function calls.
  • Compare recursion and iteration, including when it’s best to use each approach.
  • Search for a given value in an array using linear search and binary search.
  • Sort arrays using the simple iterative selection and insertion sort algorithms.
  • Sort arrays using the more complex but higherperformance recursive merge sort algorithm.
  • Use Big O notation to compare the efficiencies of searching and sorting algorithms.
  • Use Seaborn and Matplotlib to build an animated selection sort algorithm visualization.

Outline


©1992–2020 by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This content is based on Chapter 5 of the book Intro to Python for Computer Science and Data Science: Learning to Program with AI, Big Data and the Cloud.

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