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Introduction to Algorithms (2020)

ocw.mit.edu

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Re: Introduction to Algorithms (2020)

#11

Post by jmconfuzeus »

I'm studying algorithms too right now.

As someone who sucks at maths and puzzle solving in general, Steve Skiena's book is proving to be quite approachable for me. Although I have to jump back and forth between the book and Khan Academy to look up some of the Maths.

He also has video lectures for the book: https://www3.cs.stonybrook.edu/~skiena/373/videos/

Another thing that helped me was brushing up on C programming skills. As a Python programmer, algorithms like hash maps don't make any sense because you just slap keys and values on a dictionary and call it a day but in C, you get to see how buckets and hash functions are used to build hash maps.

Re: Introduction to Algorithms (2020)

#12

Post by yodsanklai »

obilgic wrote: post #2

Here is my latest life hack that I have been using. Pick a major from MIT and see their degree program to form a basic knowledge graph of the major. Find them on https://ocw.mit.edu/ and study yourself. Usually, taking 1-2 classes gives you a great insight in to any topic so that you can at least collaborate better with the experts of those topics in a team environment.

I did a couple of MIT projects in some of their graduate classes (OS, distributed systems) which was a lot of work. At least one week full time for each of them. And that's just the lab, I barely looked at the lectures (which were based on key research articles on the field).

But looking at the first classes of each topic to have a broad view seems like a good idea too.

I wish I could go back to school. CS is changing so fast, it's impossible to keep up to date within your free time.

Re: Introduction to Algorithms (2020)

#13

Post by kaba0 »

obilgic wrote: post #2

Here is my latest life hack that I have been using. Pick a major from MIT and see their degree program to form a basic knowledge graph of the major. Find them on https://ocw.mit.edu/ and study yourself. Usually, taking 1-2 classes gives you a great insight in to any topic so that you can at least collaborate better with the experts of those topics in a team environment.

I have also come to the same conclusion, and I believe it would be a very great idea to create a program that graph’s a topic’s “dependency courses”, perhaps with some must-read books for each subject.

Re: Introduction to Algorithms (2020)

#14

Post by oxff »

kaba0 wrote: post #13
obilgic wrote: post #2

Here is my latest life hack that I have been using. Pick a major from MIT and see their degree program to form a basic knowledge graph of the major. Find them on https://ocw.mit.edu/ and study yourself. Usually, taking 1-2 classes gives you a great insight in to any topic so that you can at least collaborate better with the experts of those topics in a team environment.

I have also come to the same conclusion, and I believe it would be a very great idea to create a program that graph’s a topic’s “dependency courses”, perhaps with some must-read books for each subject.

It is not such a great idea, the dependency courses. Most prerequisites for a self-learner are kind of overblown IME. If you're applying the knowledge and / or you don't have time to go through them like a college student, your prerequisites have a different function for you (the least amount that makes you understand the main topic you want to understand in order to apply that knowledge, this might mean just literally skimming a paper or reading a subchapter of a chapter in some other book - you are not there for the prerequisites).

I talk about applying the knowledge a lot because it is a wonderful constraint, it makes it so that you don't accidentally read things cover to cover, but do like a depth first search into the subject instead.

Re: Introduction to Algorithms (2020)

#15

Post by marginalia_nu »

obilgic wrote: post #2

Here is my latest life hack that I have been using. Pick a major from MIT and see their degree program to form a basic knowledge graph of the major. Find them on https://ocw.mit.edu/ and study yourself. Usually, taking 1-2 classes gives you a great insight in to any topic so that you can at least collaborate better with the experts of those topics in a team environment.

I'm having the weirdest deja-vu right now.

Turns out I did see a thread almost like this, with a top comment almost like this a week ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32793139

Felt like I was going insane.

Re: Introduction to Algorithms (2020)

#16

Post by _ceuz »

oxff wrote: post #3
obilgic wrote: post #2

Here is my latest life hack that I have been using. Pick a major from MIT and see their degree program to form a basic knowledge graph of the major. Find them on https://ocw.mit.edu/ and study yourself. Usually, taking 1-2 classes gives you a great insight in to any topic so that you can at least collaborate better with the experts of those topics in a team environment.

> Pick a major from MIT and see their degree program to form a basic knowledge graph of the major This was exactly how I taught myself, but I used CMU as my guide, lol. It is not hard to find good quality material, many universities have them open, but this curriculum is hard to 'graph' when you don't know where to start and what is an actual logical way to organize it. So yeah, do this if you are a self-learner.

While good materials are easy to find, it'd be much easier if all assignments and solutions were available the way they are in this MIT course. I find a lot of value in verifying my solutions, or comparing to other valid solutions.

Cheating is a major problem, but I think the benefits (at least societally) would greatly outweigh the costs. I know sometimes courses don't change enough to make releasing solutions to assignments from past years a viable compromise.

Re: Introduction to Algorithms (2020)

#18

Post by zasdffaa »

oxff wrote: post #10
zasdffaa wrote: post #9

I've spent a lot of time learning algorithms, and learning that certain ones exist, without learning their precise details (for future use). They have never got used. Maybe I used a bloom filter once. It's had some value in knowing when a certain algorithm is inappropriate, but otherwise it's been a massive waste. Surely things can be better than this? Jobs bleat for "creative, intelligent people with a knowledge of…

You might not work in context where you have to recognize these patterns out in the wild and apply the knowledge. I have friends 2 decades into programming as a profession who've never implemented any of these.

That's exactly my point. And it is, I think, a massive waste of what I (and surely many others) can do.

Re: Introduction to Algorithms (2020)

#19

Post by kaba0 »

oxff wrote: post #14
kaba0 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have also come to the same conclusion, and I believe it would be a very great idea to create a program that graph’s a topic’s “dependency courses”, perhaps with some must-read books for each subject.

It is not such a great idea, the dependency courses. Most prerequisites for a self-learner are kind of overblown IME. If you're applying the knowledge and / or you don't have time to go through them like a college student, your prerequisites have a different function for you (the least amount that makes you understand the main topic you want to understand in order to apply that knowledge, this might mean just literal…

The authors that can write a book such that you can understand it without previous knowledge are wonderful, but it is heavily dependent on the subject. It’s hard to talk about differential equations without first knowing calculus.

Re: Introduction to Algorithms (2020)

#20

Post by oxff »

kaba0 wrote: post #19
oxff wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not such a great idea, the dependency courses. Most prerequisites for a self-learner are kind of overblown IME. If you're applying the knowledge and / or you don't have time to go through them like a college student, your prerequisites have a different function for you (the least amount that makes you understand the main topic you want to understand in order to apply that knowledge, this might mean just literal…

The authors that can write a book such that you can understand it without previous knowledge are wonderful, but it is heavily dependent on the subject. It’s hard to talk about differential equations without first knowing calculus.

It is not possible and I didn't mean to imply that. There'll be endless prereqs. most of the time.

Just that if you need to understand differential equations, and you don't know calculus, the answer in this context isn't reading Spivak from start to finish (here I am assuming a working programmer / self-learner that wants to apply the knowledge - constrained by time and application much more heavily than a student of mathematics for example).

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