Data Structures & Algorithms

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Learning goals

Familiarize yourself with common data structures and algorithms such as lists, trees, maps, graphs, Big-O analysis, and more!

Suggested prerequisites

Familiarity with basics programming concepts (e.g. if statements, loops, functions)

Data Structures & Algorithms

Programming Languages

Java Java

C++ C++

Python Python

JavaScript JavaScript

Maps/Dictionaries

Maps (also known as Dictionaries) are data structures stores a collection of key-value pairs. Each key is unique and allows for quick access to values. A real life example of a map could be storing the grades for students in a class (student name is key, grade is value).

Data Structures & Algorithms

Quick intro to hash maps
- Data Structures
- Algorithms

Linked Lists

Linked Lists, similar to arrays, are a data structure that allow you to store a collection of items in a specific order. Unlike arrays, elements in a linked list are not stored at contiguous memory locations and are instead stored in nodes that are linked using pointers.

Data Structures & Algorithms

Intro to linked lists
- Data Structures
- Algorithms

Trees

Trees are a common non-linear data structure. They don’t store data in a linear way, but instead organize hierarchically. A tree is normally represented by nodes which contain a value and point to other nodes.

Data Structures & Algorithms

Intro to trees
- Data Structures
- Algorithms

Stacks & Queues

Stacks are a data structure that store a collection of items that inserted and removed according to the last-in first-out (LIFO) principle. Similarly, Queues store items according ot the first-in first-out (FIFO) principle.

Data Structures & Algorithms

Intro to stacks and queues
- Data Structures
- Algorithms

Heaps

A heap is a tree-based data structure that usually comes in two varieties: (1) Max-heaps where the the value in any node is greater than all the values in it's child nodes and (2) Min-heaps where the value in any node is less than all of the values in it's child nodes.

Data Structures & Algorithms

How heaps work
- Data Structures
- Algorithms

Graphs

Graphs are a non-linear data structure considering of nodes and edges (which connect pairs of nodes). Graphs are used to solve many real-life problems and are often used to represent networks (e.g. friends on a social network).

Data Structures & Algorithms

Intro to graphs
- Data Structures
- Algorithms

Runtime Analysis

Runtime analysis allows us to measure how efficient code is. Runtime anlaysis is generally done using Big-O notation, which represents how fast code will run in the worst case.

Data Structures & Algorithms

Intro to Big-O notation
- Algorithms
- Data Structures

Searching & Sorting

Searching algorithms are used to Sorting algorithms are used to rearrange a list of elements so that they're in a speciified order (e.g. sorting numbers to go from highest to lowest).

Data Structures & Algorithms

Algorithms: binary search
- Algorithms
- Searching

Recursion & DP

Recursive algorithms involve a function calling itself in order to solve a smaller version of a problem. Similarly, dynamic programing algorithms break down problems into subproblems in order to solve a larger problem. Although the two concepts aren't exactly the same, dynamic programming solutions are often implemented recursively.

Data Structures & Algorithms

What is recursion?
- Algorithms
- Recursion

Data Structures & Algorithms

Data Structures & Algorithms

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