Design Patterns, Data Structures and Algorithms: From beginner to master?

[Manoj Shekhawat]

Hi,

I have close to 8 years of working experience. It was fun at the start of carrier as I had to just learn programming languages to do my work. Switching organizations was also bit easy in my initial carrier.

I started my carrier as a Perl Web developer. Worked almost 5 years in different Perl technologies. Then my work at organization demanded learning Java technologies. I learned core java in the way clearing OCJP7 and OCJP8.

I now have close to 8 years of experience. While appearing for job interviews I noticed (at least in Indian region) that services companies focus on programming language deep knowledge. Whereas tech-giants (like Amazon, Adobe, Oracle, etc.) focuses on Design Patterns ,DS and Algo etc.

I had done my engineering degree from Electronics and Tele-communications, where DS and Algo was not in syllabus.

Can someone please suggest how I can learn Design Patterns ,DS and Algo to be in tech-giants (assuming that I have ZERO knowledge in these) ?

[Junilu Lacar]

Short of studying for a Computer Science degree, your best bet would probably be to read books about those subjects and practice, practice, practice.

There are many books on design patterns but Google will probably give you a good idea of how they rank. Good books on design patterns

Same for data structures and algorithms: Good books on data structures and algorithms

If you want to make yourself more hireable, here are a couple of things you can polish up in your written communication:

1. Spelling - first impressions count so always check your spelling, especially in your resume. You consistently misspelled "career" in your post; "carrier" is something totally different. (I'm reminded of a line from "The Princess Bride": You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means. — Inigo Montoya)

2. Avoid abbreviations and shortcuts - Things like "DS and algo" make the reader actually work a little harder to understand what you're saying. Spell things out, again, especially in your resume.

[German Gonzalez-Morris]

If you are already familiar with Java, probably already have been using many of GoF Design Patterns.
You can read GoF book, or maybe Head First... there are several books about it.
A good summary (with source code) can be found at:

https://github.com/iluwatar/java-design-patterns

For Algorithms and Data Structure probably is harder field because has Math involved.
A classical book is Cormen's Introduction To Algorithms 2nd ed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Algorithms

Again, both areas has books, videos, tutorials. Good luck.

[David Simkulette]

Two word:

Read.

Books.

This is the way to advance yourself. There are a metric ton of books written in java explaining algos and data strcutures. Got to Amazon. Read the reviews, good and bad. That will help yuou sort through the pile.

Some truly good ones, classics, have high ratings but are written by experts for experts. That's not you. Look for ones where reviewers explicitly say they knew nothing and it taught them a ton.  Look for ones that appear to be geared towards the smart beginner- that's defintely you.