Week 7: linked structures

Hello world...
So unfortunately, due to the fact that I was in the Wednesday evening class from 6-8:00 pm on Wed, I was unaware that there was in fact a lecture section on linked structures for this week’s class, given the scheduling of the first term test at the same time as lecture. Nevertheless, the concept of linked data structures (i.e. the “LinkedList” class used in lab) was pretty straightforward, and after reading the lecture slides and one of the readings on “LinkedList” that was posted on the website* (along with a few Google searches on the topic), I feel fairly comfortable with the idea and able to implement a linked data structure should that appear on an assignment or exercise.

LinkedList into Binary Tree?

Even though the lecture slides had clearly pointed out that the example of LinkedList used was a representation of a tree with arity = 1, I’m fairly confident that - with some slight modification to the LinkedList class - it can also be used to represent trees of arity n. The classes LinkedList and TreeList represent more or less the same idea, though how the two implement recursive structures are slightly different. Nevertheless, I found that applying the concepts (i.e. height, branching factor, internal nodes, leaves, etc.) I had learned when we were covering TreeList helped me with understanding LinkedList.

Reflections on the test and other thoughts....

Now, to talk briefly about the test we had: I thought it was fairly straightforward; nothing surprising. The test covered the basic concepts we had learned in class, and there was quite honestly nothing that was out of the ordinary. Yes, there were a couple hard questions on the test that took some time to think about, but in general, I feel fairly confident that I had done well on the test, and I think this was a similar sentiment shared by other students who had attended lectures and labs regularly. For those who didn’t attend lectures and labs, it is to my understanding that it was a “challenging test”, as I was told by one of my friends who didn’t show up for lectures regularly. The cheat sheet we were allowed to bring was sort of unnecessary, since I didn’t use it even once on the exam. However, I found that the time I spent reviewing previous topics in creating my cheat sheet was actually really helpful in preparing for the exam, and made my more prepared in general for the fundamental concepts of CSC148.

*Here’s the link to the article I was talking about. I personally thought it was immensely helpful for understanding LinkedList. 

• http://openbookproject.net/thinkcs/python/english3e/linked_lists.html#the-fundamental-ambiguity-theorem