"Online" used to mean "not batch-processed". Computer scientists still refer to "online algorithms" as meaning "algorithms which process each input as it comes

"Online" used to mean "not batch-processed". Computer scientists still refer to "online algorithms" as meaning "algorithms which process each input as it comes in". The obvious algorithm for "find the minimum element" is online for example, since you can stop at any point and say what the smallest you've seen so far is; however finding the median takes more work (you need to maintain two heaps, vs. simply collecting all the data and sorting it at the end).