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method and algorithm

panevino

Senior Member
spanish and catalan - Spain
Could you please let me know the difference between method and algorithm?
Can a method be computed into an algorithm?
Can an algorithm be based on a method?
Please provide some context. Do you mean in terms of computer coding? What are you doing or where did you see this?
I have developed a method for structural optimization. This is composed of a series of steps.
I have created an algorithm based on the steps of the method to test it. More specifically I developed three versions of the algorithm that allowed me to put the method into practice.
What I now dont know is wether the method is all: the design of the different steps and the algorithm, or just the design of the different steps?
Last edited:
If there is a distinction, the method is more abstract (*), while the algorithm is more practical. The algorithm is the series of steps that you go through to get the job done.
Depending on circumstances, the two can be synonymous. It sounds like in your case they more or less are.

Inasmuch as there may be computation involved, this may have its own sub-algorithms.

(*) There is an exception, in that at least one programming language uses (or perhaps mis-uses) the term "method" to designate what other languages call functions, procedures, or subroutines.
I think they are often interchangeable terms in this context. Your method is expressed in a algorithm, which is itself is a way to express the method - its circular.
You are right that “algorithm” carries more of a sense of the computational side of things.
What I dont know is wether when I claim that I have developed a method, this involves all: the design of the different steps and the algorithm, or just the design of the different steps?
Thank you very much for your answers. Indeed, the expression: "The method was expressed in an algorithm" is interesting. I don't have to specify if all the work is the method or not.
Yes. I think you are perceiving a problem where there isn’t one.
Good luck.
Yes, I am a kind of expert in that discipline.
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