An algebraic programming system is a language built from a fixed algebraic data abstraction and a selection of deterministic, and non-deterministic, assignment and control constructs. First, we give a detailed analysis of the operational structure of an algebraic data type, one which is designed to classify programming systems in terms of the complexity of their implementations. Secondly, we test our operational description by comparing the computations in deterministic and non-deterministic programming systems under certain space and time restrictions
