Introduction to Problem Solving
Notes:
Introduction to problem solving :
Problem:
A situation that is unwelcome, which needs to be dealt with and overcome
As in our day to day life, while developing soft-wares also we come across variety of situations (i.e. problems) that we need to deal with and overcome.
Ex:
Calculations,
Searching,
Sorting,
List processing,
Graph processing,
Image processing,
Sound processing,
Storage,
Sharing and more …
Problem Solving:
A process of finding an efficient solution to the given problem
Problem solving using computers requires careful thought process and proper planning. As computer has no self intelligence or natural intelligence like humans, we need to guide computer how to solve a problem by providing a set of well defined steps/instructions/commands.
Steps to solve a problem:
Understand and analyze the problem (Why? What ? )
Design the solution by using appropriate problem solving tool (How? Which?)
Code the solution by using appropriate programming language
Run and Test the solution for correctness and efficiency
Document the solution
Problem solving tools:
Help us to design solutions to the problem…
Algorithm
Pseudo code
Flowchart
DFD (Data Flow Diagram)
UML (Unified Modeling Language)