Software algorithms today

The concept of algorithms has existed since antic times. Pretty much at the same time math was “invented”, people started to wonder how can we do some sort of calculations. These days, even though we are inventing and building more algorithms each day, we are widely using algorithms that were invented even before computers became a thing. As the matter of fact, before the first modern computer was even built.

Today there are countless more resources available. Multiples of people working on improving specific algorithms. We are teaching non mathematicians about widely used algorithms such as quick sorts. As a humanity we are progressing towards algorithmic future.

As a humanity we are doing concrete implementations on different adjacent fields. We’re doing various machine learning based projects. We have plants identifications projects in biology, early diseases detections in medicine, stock market oracles in economics. You name it, and somebody is probably working on an algorithm for that.

Us few, that work in designing algorithms, tend to think of ourself as mad scientists. We believe machine code should execute efficiently. We aim to design future proof algorithms. We aim for O(n) complexity and O(n) space. We think this is the way to move forward with technology.

Did you know

• Hackerrank was founded in 2012, it was the first Indian company that got enrolled into Y combinator.

Software algorithms for non techies

Software algorithms are closely tied to math and to logical thinkings. Writing a complex algorithm is similar to solving a complex math equation. There are a lot of common and standardized way of doing things but most often you need to adapt a certain algorithm to your needs.

Algorithms can be written in almost any programming language. More often than not, a concrete programming language will come with predefined algorithms implementations as part of some standard library. Algorithms are all about doing a certain thing, machine resources efficiently.

There can exist multiple algorithms that provide the same result. However, important difference is how much compute time and compute space they consume. Research for some of them is famous. So long lasting, that there is a $1,000,000 prize ensured for a person that manages to solve it. Like this one, a traveling salesman problem, or another version of it, organising household accommodation for students algorithm/math problem.

About Illustration

With this t-shirt we’ve went with mad scientist as our hero. It perfectly describes the way software engineers feel when trying to design and build an efficient algorithm.

The team is set in steampunk because jobs that require high quality algorithmic skills often require and expect gentleman’s behavior. You know the kind you usually see in steampunk characters.

The explosion in the center symbolizes our thinking. Most of the time you think about some complex algorithm and then suddenly, as if some kind of explosion happens in your brain, everything falls into the place and what you want to do appears clear and easy. Just a matter of writing it down in the form of code.