Introduction to the SIGACT news online algorithms column

Abstract

Pros and cons of competitive analysis have been debated since its inception in mid 1980s. Much of this discussion centered around the accuracy of performance evaluation methods for paging, which is probably the most central among online optimization problems studied in the literature, and, at the same time, ironically, the most prominent example of shortcomings of competitive analysis. In this quarter's column, Reza Dorrigiv and Alejandro Lopez-Ortiz review the history of the problem, discuss several performance models from the literature, and propose a new model that avoids shortcomings of previous approaches. If you are interested in contributing to the column as a guest writer, feel free to contact me by email. All kinds of contributions related to online algorithms and competitive analysis are of interest: technical articles, surveys, conference reports, opinion pieces, and other.