Array or Vector?

In most cases, vectors are considered better than arrays for a few key reasons:

Size flexibility: Vectors are dynamic, meaning their size can grow or shrink as needed during program execution. Arrays have a fixed size defined at the time of creation, which can lead to problems if you don't know exactly how many elements you'll need beforehand.
Memory management: Vectors handle memory allocation and de-allocation automatically. Arrays require manual memory management, which can be error-prone and lead to memory leaks.
Built-in functionality: Vectors often come with additional features like methods for sorting, searching, and element insertion/deletion at specific positions. Arrays typically require manual implementation for these operations.

However, there are some situations where arrays might be preferable:

Performance: For fixed-size data sets, arrays can be slightly faster than vectors due to their simpler structure and lack of overhead for managing size changes.
Memory usage: If you know the exact size you need upfront and memory usage is a critical concern, arrays can be a more memory-efficient choice.

While learning algorithms on arrays, we'll be using vectors as our array data structures because they are easy to handle and have loads of helpful methods. We'll see some of the methods in the next section.