What We Desire in Source Coding

• No Ambiguity ⟹ UNIQUELY DECODABLE

• Space Efficient ⟹ AVERAGE CODEWORD LENGTH MINIMIZED

$$ \min \mathbb{E} \left[ \ell(X) \right ] = \min \sum_{x \in \mathcal{X}} p(x) \cdot \log \frac{1}{p(x)} $$

• Time Efficient to Decode ⟹ PREFIX FREE (NO CODE WORD IS PREFIX OF ANOTHER)

by Jon