
The real 10 algorithms that dominate our world - jonbaer
https://medium.com/@_marcos_otero/the-real-10-algorithms-that-dominate-our-world-e95fa9f16c04
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greenyoda
Let's add one more class of algorithm without which the world as we know it
wouldn't function: indexing algorithms for databases, such as B-tree indexes:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-tree](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-tree)

Imagine how long a keyword search of the web would take if there was no
indexing! Or even finding the bank account associated with your ATM card among
your bank's tens of millions of accounts.

I'm sure the HN community can think of other crucially important algorithms
that should be added to this list...

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sytelus
You are mixing up B-tree and reverse index. B-tree is significant when you
have slow media like disk. Most index serving currently happens from memory
and B-tree is not used there.

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greenyoda
I'm pretty sure that any traditional database (Oracle, MySQL, etc.) needs a
way to store indexes on disk.

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sytelus
These type of "top 10" lists are usually meaningless. You can argue string
search, binary search, hash tables, heaps, BFS/DFS, Monte Carlo methods,
compression algorithms etc etc are important enough that modern world won't
exist without it.

