FAQs & Common Use Cases: Overview

Introduction

Algorithms are not just academic exercises; they are the tools we use to solve real-world engineering problems. This section provides a strategic overview of how to map complex requirements to the right algorithmic patterns.

Typical Business Scenarios

• “We need a leaderboard.” -> See Sorting & TopK (Chapter 3).
• “Our database is slow on text search.” -> See Inverted Index (Chapter 2.1).
• “We have millions of duplicate images.” -> See MinHash & LSH (Chapter 2.8).
• “How do we prevent API abuse?” -> See Rate Limiting (Chapter 5.5).
• “Which server should handle this request?” -> See Consistent Hashing (Chapter 4.3).

Selection Cheat Sheet (The Quick Map)

The Engineering Mindset

“An engineer’s job is not to implement the perfect algorithm, but to choose the one with the right trade-offs for the current scale, budget, and accuracy requirements.”