  This survey gives an overview of several fundamental algebraic constructions
which arise in the study of splines. Splines play a key role in approximation
theory, geometric modeling, and numerical analysis, their properties depend on
combinatorics, topology, and geometry of a simplicial or polyhedral subdivision
of a region in R^k, and are often quite subtle. We describe four algebraic
techniques which are useful in the study of splines: homology, graded algebra,
localization, and inverse systems. Our goal is to give a hands-on introduction
to the methods, and illustrate them with concrete examples in the context of
splines. We highlight progress made with these methods, such as a formula for
the third coefficient of the polynomial giving the dimension of the spline
space in high degree, much of which builds on pioneering work of Schumaker,
Alfeld-Schumaker, and Billera. The objects appearing here may be computed using
the Macaulay2 software system.
