: What is Heuristic analysis?
In: Technology
The word Heuristic is very often used as an opposite to algorithmic.
Algorithms are by detention mathematically perfect. If you have an algorithm to find the fastest rout between point A and point B, it will give you the fasters rout. All algorithms solving that problem will give you the same, or equally good answer, because these answers are perfect.
Unfortunately in real life algorithmic solutions are not always possible. Some problems, and sometimes relatively simple problems have incredibly complicated algorithms, or ones that would take longer than the lifetime of the universe to solve.
This is why we have heuristics, and heuristic analysis. Sometimes a 99% good answer can be gotten billions of times faster than the 100% answer. Sometimes algorithms just don’t exist, and we have to fall back to heuristics. It’s just a way to usually get a pretty good answer. We use it when perfect is too costly.
Basically, it’s analyzing something using instinct and educated guesses. It comes in handy when you need to make quick decisions.
For example, if you write a 20 page paper, and I don’t have time to carefully evaluate it right now, but you want a general idea of how you did, I could use my knowledge of your previous assignments, what this paper was supposed to be about, and give a quick skim to see if you’re on the right track.
A lot of people use virus scanning software as an example of a program that uses heuristic analysis. That is, it looks for key words in code that are typically not in normal code. It cannot always know for sure that there is a virus because it might be a new virus, but it can recognize the *threat* of one.
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