Backtrackin' is a 2 disc compilation album by Eric Clapton spanning from 1966 to 1980. It was released in 1984. The compilation contains all of Clapton’s best known songs with Cream, Blind Faith, Derek and the Dominos and his solo 70’s work through his 1980 live album Just One Night. This compilation album is made in Europe and is only available in the United States as an import. It was originally released by Starblend Records, Ltd and has since been issued by Polydor Records. This 2 CD compilation is currently out of print in some markets while still available in some form in others.

The original vinyl album had each side as its own section. Side 1 (tracks 1-6 on CD 1) were listed as “singles.” Side 2 (tracks 7-11 on CD 1) were listed as “history.” Side 3 (tracks 1-6 on CD 2) were listed as “classics.” Wile side 4 (tracks 7-11 on CD 2) wrapped up with live material. The same section listings can be found on the CD pressings.

Backtracking is a general algorithm for finding all (or some) solutions to some computational problem, that incrementally builds candidates to the solutions, and abandons each partial candidate c ("backtracks") as soon as it determines that c cannot possibly be completed to a valid solution.

The classic textbook example of the use of backtracking is the eight queens puzzle, that asks for all arrangements of eight queens on a standard chessboard so that no queen attacks any other. In the common backtracking approach, the partial candidates are arrangements of k queens in the first k rows of the board, all in different rows and columns. Any partial solution that contains two mutually attacking queens can be abandoned, since it cannot possibly be completed to a valid solution.

Backtracking can be applied only for problems which admit the concept of a "partial candidate solution" and a relatively quick test of whether it can possibly be completed to a valid solution. It is useless, for example, for locating a given value in an unordered table. When it is applicable, however, backtracking is often much faster than brute force enumeration of all complete candidates, since it can eliminate a large number of candidates with a single test.