[e-Book] Data Structures & Algorithms in PYTHON

Introduction​

What’s in this book? This book is designed to be a practical introduction to data structures and algorithms for students who have just begun to write computer programs. This introduction will tell you more about the book, how it is organized, what experience we expect readers will have before starting the book, and what knowledge you will get by reading it and doing the exercises.

Who This Book Is For​

Data structures and algorithms are the core of computer science. If you’ve ever wanted to understand what computers can do, how they do it, and what they can’t do, then you need a deep understanding of both (it’s probably better to say “what computers have difficulty doing” instead of what they can’t do). This book may be used as a text in a data structures and/or algorithms course, frequently taught in the second year of a university computer science curriculum. The text, however, is also designed for professional programmers, for high school students, and for anyone else who needs to take the next step up from merely knowing a programming language. Because it’s easy to understand, it is also appropriate as a supplemental text to a more formal course. It is loaded with examples, exercises, and supplemental materials, so it can be used for self-study outside of a classroom setting. Our approach in writing this book is to make it easy for readers to understand how data structures operate and how to apply them in practice. That’s different from some other texts that emphasize the mathematical theory, or how those structures are implemented in a particular language or software library. We’ve selected examples with real-world applications and avoid using math-only or obscure examples. We use figures and visualization programs to help communicate key ideas.