Algorithmic thinking

[Salil Wadnerkar]

I am poor at correlating real-world, on-the-job problems with the ones I learned in a textbook. Does this book take examples from the real world, and how to identify its correlation with the already seen theoretical problem?

[Daniel Zingaro]

Hi Salil,

We're on the same page

I explicitly stay away from the standard examples that are so well-covered by books/tutorials/videos already. There are enough resources for those.

I can't exactly claim that my examples are directly job-related -- I kept them small to focus on the data structure/algorithm at hand -- but at least I don't think you'll have seen these examples before.

Connections between theory and practice was an important goal for me, too. Questions like: why is this data structure/algorithm useful? How do I know when to use it? What do the problems have to look like for me to deploy this data structure/algorithm? This discussion is important IMHO, otherwise you're left with a collection of data structures/algorithms but with little guidance for using them.

Thank you,
Dan

[Campbell Ritchie]

Daniel Zingaro wrote:. . . why is this data structure/algorithm useful? How do I know when to use it? . . .

What a useful question We see so may people who only know one data structure, the array list, and struggle when we tell them their problem would be really easy to solve with a set/map/whatever.

[Daniel Zingaro]

Campbell Ritchie wrote:

Daniel Zingaro wrote:. . . why is this data structure/algorithm useful? How do I know when to use it? . . .

What a useful question We see so may people who only know one data structure, the array list, and struggle when we tell them their problem would be really easy to solve with a set/map/whatever.

Yes! And there's this shift that I observe in my students when it clicks, and suddenly they see how critical it is to choose the correct data structure.

It's really hard to motivate this with small datasets, though. Like if we use examples with 10 numbers or 50 numbers, it won't matter how you solve it or what data structure is used.

The book uses examples with massive data sets so that using the wrong data structure is going to grind to a halt.

Dan

[Campbell Ritchie]

Daniel Zingaro wrote:. . .  using the wrong data structure is going to grind to a halt. . . .

Hahahahahahaha!

[Daniel Zingaro]

Campbell Ritchie wrote:

Daniel Zingaro wrote:. . .  using the wrong data structure is going to grind to a halt. . . .

Hahahahahahaha!

A bit evil, I guess, but hey -- at least readers can't convince themselves that their code is fast enough?

Dan