Archived I've just finished a Data Structures class. What can I use it for? (learnprogramming)
submitted ago by bloopton
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Archived I've just finished a Data Structures class. What can I use it for? (learnprogramming)
submitted ago by bloopton
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[–] brux 0 points 5 points 5 points (+5|-0) ago
In practice, unless you're working on core libraries, you won't use data structures directly, much. Almost everything has already been done better in a library for you. It's very helpful; however, to know different ways to store large sets of data, in ways that let you operate over the data with minimal memory footprint or optimal performance, etc. i.e., Should I put this set of data in a HashSet? Perhaps a LinkedList? Why am I using so much memory for this dictionary?
[–] bloopton [S] 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
So it's more like a conceptual understanding of the way systems and programs around you work?
[–] brux 0 points 3 points 3 points (+3|-0) ago
Yes. Knowing which data structure to pick is very valuable, but you'll rarely create the implementation of one of those data structures. Think about this problem: You have a huge list of Strings, and you want to find if there are duplicates. Comparing every two nodes will take way too long. What data structure can solve this for you?
[–] king_of_voat 1 point -1 points 0 points (+0|-1) ago
While it's true that you probably won't ever have to implement fundamental datastructures yourself knowledge of them is really important. Algorithms as a topic are by far not the only thing you should focus on studying.
If you know your datastructures, deciding how you want to write something performantly will become a lot easier, just consider e.g. that tree maps can be useful in cases where you need to be able to lookup all values with a key greater than x. You could work around with using some sort of hash map / list combination but knowing this stuff will make your life way easier.