Question

This lesson introduced the notion of "efficiency" in programming, and that it might mean different things at different times. Think of an example outside of computer science in which you have heard the term "efficiency" and compare it to the ways we talked about efficiency in programming.

In what ways is the meaning of "efficiency" the same? In what ways is it different?

Answer 1

In physics, efficiency is a measure of how much energy is conserved in a process.

In programming, efficiency is directly linked with the speed of runtime execution for software and algorithmic efficiency.

In this comparison, both meanings try to measure the quality of the processes and have formulas to detect this efficiency.

Both meanings have different formulas to define the measures, Big O notation for programming and percentage of energy output divided by energy input for physics. Furthermore, in physics is not possible to get 100% efficiency, but it is possible for programming to have O(1) of efficiency.