Diving into Data Structures

As you can probably suspect, I’m about to launch a brand new series on data structures. So, let’s dive in!

Table of Contents

Remembering the Past Year

Before I get into data structures, I want to just chat a little bit about how my life has changed over the past year. For instance, I…

• Graduated from college
• Watched the Cavs and Pens win championships
• Moved into my first apartment (meaning I pay all the bills myself)
• Took a trip to Pittsburgh for my 4th Warped Tour
• Started my career with GE Transportation
• Paid my first phone, electric, and gas bills
• Started paying off my student loans
• Started investing in a 401K, Acorns, and Stash
• Dove into A-Course
• Started a side hustle with a couple friends
• Watched the Indians blow a 3-1 lead
• Traveled to New York for a leadership training
• Abandoned a life draining side project
• Started The Renegade Coder
• Grew apart from some lifelong friends
• Picked up a new kitten
• Traveled out to Richmond for my first NASCAR race
• Finished A-Course
• Scored two tickets off my sister to attend my first Stanley Cup hockey game

And of course, I played a ton of Overwatch, watched a lot of hockey and anime, and practiced Spanish like mad. I foresee so much more changing in just a few months. For example, I plan to…

• Move to Atlanta, Georgia to further my career in software development
• Travel to Mexico for a leadership training

I even have some plans that I want to keep a secret for a little while. Though I’ll give a hint – two of those plans are major milestones in life. 🙂

Regardless, I usually take life one day at a time, so it’s no surprise I’m only able to come up with two upcoming events. That or I’m just starting to settle down a bit!

What’s to Come for The Renegade Coder?

To add to those lists, I’ve decided to launch the second set of tutorials at a blistering pace. Of course, I’m not doing this just for fun! I actually had an intern at work make a request for it. They were interested in learning more about data structures, so I’ve decided to go ahead and launch that series in tandem.

For this to be possible, I’ll need to release a topic before Friday each week. As a result, I expect some of the extra materials to be abbreviated at least for a short while. Also, since I really wanted this to be my third series, I’ll have to avoid some core Java concepts (primarily inheritance, polymorphism, etc.). Instead, the series will be more focused on the theory behind these structures.

Data Structures Series Schedule

With that said, the following is my intended schedule for the next few weeks:

1. Big O Notation
2. Arrays
3. Linked Lists
4. Stacks
5. Queues
6. Trees
7. Hashes
8. Graphs
9. Sorting (likely an introduction – I’d love to run an entire series on sorting)
10. Review

I’m going to start drafting up material for the first few lessons tonight. Then I’ll have a better idea of the amount of time that’ll need to go into getting them all done. The goal is to have at least the lesson done by Friday of each week. That way I know I’m ready to cover the subject in person. After each lesson, I’ll go back and make some edits. Hopefully, this will result in a solid set of tutorials! 🙂

User Requests

If there’s any subject that you want to see in particular, let me know in the comments below. I’m debating running a couple series at the same time, so I can tackle subjects as needed.