Amortization
• An analysis technique; not a
design technique
• Why include it in discussion
of design techniques?
– Amortization has a strong
influence on data structure
design
• Use of amortization often
leads to
– Simpler algorithms
– Improved overall runtime
Basic idea
• It doesn’t matter how long an
individual operation takes if
the total time summed over
all operations is low
CS409 - Spring 2000
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