How to write out algorithms?

Question

Does anyone know of a basic beginners tutorial on how to read mark up like this notation when talking about algorithms or what this type of markup is officially referred to as so I know what to google for?

taken from here.

Answer 1

I think you want to start learning LaTeX.

Answer 2

that's not an algorithm
that's just the notation used for elements of a series
usually a_n is for element n
S_n is for the sum up to element n

Answer 3

Typically, this sort of markup is written in some variant of TeX (mostly LaTeX).

try this one first.

Answer 4

I agree that what you're showing us is not by itself an algorithm, but merely a mathematical term.

But I thought I'd throw in MathML, since you mentioned markup.

Answer 5

I usually use wxMaxima. Enter an expression like: s[N] := sqrt(1/N*sum((x[i]-x)^2,i,1,N)), and it formats it. It can also create LaTeX output.

Answer 6

It's a formula for computing the standard deviation, not an algorithm. There's two basic algorithms for this, a two pass and a one pass. The two pass computes the mean (x̄), then the sum of differences squared. The one pass algorithm uses one of the equivalent formulas on that page to compute the sum of all terms (for the mean) and sum of squares of each term simultaneously.