Algorithms [10 points total]

a. In your own words, clearly explain what an algorithm is. [3 points]

b. Why is it important to have well-specified algorithms? What are algorithms useful for?
[2 points]






c. I have ten people standing in line, and I want to order them in alphabetical order by first
name, from “A” at the beginning of the line to “Z” at the end. Give a well-specified
algorithm to do so. These people are not too bright, so they will only respond to direct
orders/questions given to each of them individually (i.e. you can’t just yell at them
“Everybody get in line by alphabetical order!”), but you can use things like “for” loops.
[5 points]

What is/are the benefit(s) of having functions? Why not just write all the code out in the place
where it is needed, instead of calling a function somewhere else to do the job? [2 points]

Why will the Javascript code below not work? How should it be fixed? [3 points]

<script type="text/javascript">
document.write(greeting);
var greeting = "Ni hao!";
</script>

Note: 1 point for the correct script, 2 points for the explaination!

I have a variable called myGrade that stores a number. Write an if-else statement that will give
an alert box that says “Woohoo!” if myGrade is greater than 3.4 and less than or equal to 4.0.
(Hint: you will need to review Boolean and relational operators.) Otherwise, it should give an alert
box that says “Boooo!” Please be careful with your capitalization, spelling, punctuation, etc. If
your code doesn’t run, you lose points. [4 points]

Note: 3 points for perfect! 1 point for almost correct if-else block. 1 point for the correct boolean
evaluation. 1 point for the alerts.

Pretend you are writing the following code for an assignment. Copy and paste it somewhere, and
run it, as directed. It is supposed to count the number of both upper and lowercase s’s, and
then print out the total number, but as you will see when it is ran as is, it has many errors. Write down EACH
STEP of your debugging process. What did you first do to figure out where the errors are? What
are the errors? What steps did you do to figure out the error? Also, print out a copy of your
corrected code. [8 points]

<script type="text/javascript">

var myWord = 'supercalifragilisticexpialidocious';
var count = 0;

for(var i = 1; i > myWord.length; i++) {
     if(myWord.charAt(i) == 's') {
          count++;
     }
}
document.write('You have ' count + " s's.");

</script>