Data Structures… so how do I understand them? [closed]

Answer 1

The only way to meaningfully learn data structures and algorithms is to see them applied to real-world problems and to use them to solve real-world problems. Coding them up into working applications -- even if they contrived -- will reinforce the theoretical knowledge such that you will stand a better chance of retaining the ideas and integrating them into your personal problem-solving approach.

Answer 2

Honestly, I'm a self-taught C++ programmer originally (with my primary reference being the Source game engine's public-domain code from Half-Life 2), and I learned much of what got me through Data Structures by drawing up diagrams and reading comments and code.

Maybe I'm just a prodigy or something, because it always seemed to come relatively easy to me, but I learned during a LOT of time spent reading, thinking, and analyzing what the particular uses of each structure could be, and why each structure exists as something separate from the other data structures in the first place.

Having written some serious code projects (ie. Connect Four and a side-scrolling space shooter, as well as 3D isometric plotters and 2D drawing programs) on the severely-limited TI-83 Plus calculator in high school (p.s. Using TI-Basic, not Assembly), I realized what sorts of operations were more efficient, and I realized how limited the built-in list system (a basic Vector) was for data storage in certain situations. I also figured out how Big-O worked when I tried timing a program's runtime with different-size lists of input.

Practice, think about things as you are doing them, and try to figure out how and why they work, and never be afraid to get down and dirty with testing. After all, what is science without experimentation?

Answer 3

Donald Knuth's "The art of computer programming", vol 1.

Answer 4

Here is a nice article to get you started: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cpp/linked_list.aspx .Start with a simple linked list. It's very easy and you will understand it much easier than the other data structures. The Stack and Queue are maybe conceptually even easier but they are based on the simple linked list. Then you can move to double linked lists and trees. Looking forward to see your coding questions, Good Luck! :)

Answer 5

Here's what helped me the most... Since you're a visual person, Google some visualized sorting algorithms, tree traversals, hashing, and etc to get a general idea of what's going on. After that, try making a simple program using different structures and experiment with different permutations of them--maybe for an example, you can make a linked list to start, then make it a circular linked list, then make it a doubly linked list, then make it a doubly circular linked list, and so on...

You just have to experiment with the structures, and as you do that, you'll start to see what data structures are appropriate for the applications you'll be developing.

Here are some nice references for you.. Sorting algorithms: http://www.sorting-algorithms.com/ Tree traversals: http://nova.umuc.edu/~jarc/idsv/lesson1.html Graph traversals: http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/mukundan/dsal/GraphAppl.html

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As for efficiency (Big O analysis), it will come to you more or less naturally once you understand what is happening at the algorithmic level of each operation of the data structure.

One thing my university stresses is the development of our own implementation of data structures (which is bottom-up learning) without diving into the pre-established C++ templates (top-down learning). By making it from scratch, you really come to understand the overhead involved with inserting, removing, searching (traversing), and accessing data from a certain structure, and that will help your intuition when designing a system in the future.

Answer 6

I can remember my first data structures course. I remember being a bit overwhelmed at first.

I was more of a visual learner. To better grasp the material it really helped to see pictures. I used to draw out the steps of inserting, deleting and iterating through data structures such as a linked list or queue. It took up a lot of paper before I was done, but it was so worth it.

Once I got down drawing the process of insertions and what nots, the transition to actually programming the data structure was much easier.

Being able to visualize what was going on in memory really helped. And, as others mentioned before me: practice, practice, practice!

That there is a big part of success.

Good luck!