Algorithms...How do they make our lives better?

Question

Many people told me that one should always learn algorithm to make a program efficient, say for sorting we have insertion sort, merge sort, quick sort, etc....but in python I can just use the sort() method right? Why bother about all those sorting techniques! Now I know that I sound silly and those aren't the only algorithms out there but being a novice to the developers world, when we're to build an application, does implementing algorithm always get the priority? If not, when they come into the picture?!?

Answer 1

Firstly, you need to know accuratly what's behind the word 'algorithm':
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithm

Then, you would understand that there's an algorithm under most of codes, even if you write your code without writing its algrorithm (you need basically only to think and find a way to how solve your problem)... Anyway, for group working, or share with non-programmers (or programmers who doesn't known the language you use) as customers, it could be helpful to have a kind of intermediate language between code (and enough near of machine language) and real human language (simplified through algoritm schematic representation for human understanding, but not enoug accurate to be a code coding language).

So, importance of learning algorithmic (art of doing algorithm) is related to your goals, can be helpful, even for yourself (help to develop a computer logic), but is not mandatory at all ;)