Most popular questions

360 Why is quicksort better than other sorting algorithms in practice? 2012-03-06T19:11:07.127

287 What is the definition of P, NP, NP-complete and NP-hard? 2013-02-06T20:38:08.297

209 Why is writing down mathematical proofs more fault-proof than writing computer code? 2017-12-11T13:11:12.130

187 How can a language whose compiler is written in C ever be faster than C? 2015-08-22T14:13:48.210

177 Is there a system behind the magic of algorithm analysis? 2014-04-09T12:59:52.003

167 Why, really, is the Halting Problem so important? 2014-11-08T16:44:58.327

142 How can it be decidable whether $\pi$ has some sequence of digits? 2012-03-14T13:19:52.857

139 Why are there so many programming languages? 2012-03-17T06:00:44.033

130 How to convert finite automata to regular expressions? 2012-05-23T08:19:27.003

128 Why can I look at a graph and immediately find the closest point to another point, but it takes me O(n) time through programming? 2014-03-17T06:05:56.817

127 Is Category Theory useful for learning functional programming? 2012-08-03T17:52:13.360

120 BIT: What is the intuition behind a binary indexed tree and how was it thought about? 2013-03-15T17:56:58.113

117 How to fool the "try some test cases" heuristic: Algorithms that appear correct, but are actually incorrect 2014-08-28T20:51:43.760

116 Why hasn't there been an encryption algorithm that is based on the known NP-Hard problems? 2012-03-14T08:02:26.627

110 How/when is calculus used in Computer Science? 2016-04-05T00:21:33.837

108 What's the difference between a binary search tree and a binary heap? 2014-06-20T04:43:44.160

100 How not to solve P=NP? 2012-05-17T01:24:29.327

99 Quicksort Partitioning: Hoare vs. Lomuto 2013-04-21T08:02:32.013

98 What are the reasons to learn different algorithms / data structures serving the same purpose? 2016-02-17T06:13:26.403

95 How does one know which notation of time complexity analysis to use? 2012-03-07T01:42:10.933

94 Why is deep learning hyped despite bad VC dimension? 2017-05-13T12:43:43.370

92 How to prove that a language is not context-free? 2012-03-12T23:57:46.817

92 Solving or approximating recurrence relations for sequences of numbers 2012-07-17T18:31:38.607

89 Why are some programming languages "faster" or "slower" than others? 2017-03-24T07:05:51.820

88 What are GPUs bad at? 2020-02-24T09:05:47.120

85 How to prove that a language is not regular? 2012-04-04T10:30:32.163

83 Why is the unit of image size not Pixel²? 2018-02-13T14:11:44.177

82 Is there any concrete relation between Gödel's incompleteness theorem, the halting problem and universal Turing machines? 2012-03-15T16:43:28.693

82 Why is it best to use a prime number as a mod in a hashing function? 2013-04-04T19:36:37.447

80 Graph searching: Breadth-first vs. depth-first 2012-03-13T10:05:58.093

78 How can we assume that basic operations on numbers take constant time? 2012-05-03T00:06:31.453

77 What does the "Lambda" in "Lambda calculus" stand for? 2016-04-13T12:58:53.817

75 What is coinduction? 2012-03-19T17:34:08.127

75 Why is addition as fast as bit-wise operations in modern processors? 2017-05-23T23:44:43.203

75 What important/crucial real-world applications use blockchain? 2019-01-06T08:11:34.953

74 What properties of a programming language make compilation impossible? 2014-09-02T10:19:14.790

73 How do computers keep track of time? 2016-03-25T17:33:09.713

72 (When) is hash table lookup O(1)? 2012-03-12T19:01:07.577

70 Why is the Turing Machine a popular model of computation? 2018-05-11T15:39:30.073

69 Language theoretic comparison of LL and LR grammars 2012-03-07T00:32:31.947

69 What is the novelty in MapReduce? 2012-08-03T14:04:19.350

69 Formal program verification in practice 2013-08-17T01:51:39.910

68 Can a dynamic language like Ruby/Python reach C/C++ like performance? 2012-03-28T01:27:42.453

67 What is tail recursion? 2012-10-22T08:58:53.803

67 Are there any problems that get easier as they increase in size? 2016-01-02T04:11:39.003

66 Express boolean logic operations in zero-one integer linear programming (ILP) 2013-05-18T06:56:42.690

66 Dependent types vs refinement types 2014-02-17T07:54:50.867

65 In-place algorithm for interleaving an array 2012-03-13T20:16:32.067

64 How can I explain to my parents that I study programming languages? 2016-05-01T15:01:57.167

64 Is legislation NP-complete? 2018-11-27T11:46:07.490