First the definition:
What is an algorithm? : A step-by-step problem-solving procedure, especially an established, recursive computational procedure for solving a problem in a finite number of steps.

It's often said that you can make your program faster using better algorithm when someone talk about improving performance. I have studied lot of algorithms and also read Mastering Algorithms with Perl to know the tips and tricks. Having worked with perl's sort functionality, I have really not used other sort algorithm such as 'bubble sort', 'radix sort', or 'heap short', 'shell sort' etc.. other than for educational purpose.

Searching CPAN for algorithm yields to many evolutionary algorithms.
Some others are: MarkovChain, Huffman, Permute, Merge, Text::English , Image Processing Algorithms etc..

My Questions:
1. -- What type of good algorithm you have used for your programs and how do you come up with good algorithms?
2. -- Would you consider integrating different technology in a proper way to do the task (ex.. Apache, MySQL, Perl, HTML) as an algorithm ? What can be said about integrating different modules in a single program ( CGI, LWP, DBI) that you use over and over again.

Thanks,
artist

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Update 1:
Small example of algorithm: Finding GCD
Commercial big example of algorithm: Google's Page Rank
Update 2:
Definition is taken from Reference.com
Update 3:
Top 10 Algorithms from Computing in Science & Engineering, which includes FFT and Simplex algorithms.

In reply to Algorithms by artist

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