Algorithms

Coursera - Princeton University - Algorithms Part 1 

• Language: Java - concepts transferable to other languages as well

• Topics:

  • Analysis of Algorithms (BigO and Memory)

  • Union, Search, Sorting

  • Stacks, Queues, Priority Queues

  • Balanced Search Trees

  • Hash Tables

  • Symbol Tables

Coursera - Princeton University - Algorithms Part 2

• Language: Java - concepts transferable to other languages as well

• Topics:

  • Graphs

  • Minimum Spanning Trees

  • Shortest Paths

  • Maximum Flow and Minimum Cut

  • Radix Sorts

  • Tries (vs Trees)

  • Substring Search

  • RegEx (Regular Expressions)

  • Data Compression

  • Reduction

  • Linear Programming

  • Intractability (P, NP, NP-Complete)

The Odin Project - Web Development Training

• Ruby on Rails

• React

• HTML/CSS/JS

• Databases

• NodeJS

Youtube - Procedural Animation (Make a snake, fish, or lizard using linked circles) - This is not a tutorial, but a conceptual overview of the process.

No info here... Google it.

Get Data Files

• Kaggle Data Sets

  • Pokemon Dataset

  • Example of what you can do with a Pokemon datasets

Using Python, Java, or some other resources, parse through the data to find relevant information.

Display results in a meaningful way.

Different Data Structures have different purposes. Each one stores large amounts of data, but the speed with which you can access, add, remove, search, sort, etc. is different for each. It's important to use the "correct" data structure for the "correct" purpose for efficiency (important when dealing with large quantities of data.

Data structures often need to do the following:

• Add/Insert/Push/Enqueue (to the beginning, end, and in the middle)

• Override an existing value

• Remove/Pop/Dequeue (from the beginning, end, and middle)

• Search (Binary, Linear)

• Sort (explore the different sorting algorithms... I'm not listing them all here)

  • Some data structures are pre-sorted (trees)

How these work (algorithm) and their efficiency (Big-O) varies depending on the data structure.

A "quick" (17 min) video outlining Data Structures was created by ForrestKnight - 8 Data Structures Every Programmer Should Know.

Data Structures:

• Arrays - Fixed size, Random Access.

• ArrayLists - An array turned into an Object that has can "Dynamically" resize, making adding more or removing really quick and efficient.

• Linked Lists - nodes connected by pointing at the next node.

  • Doubly-Linked Lists - nodes point forwards & backwards

  • Circularly-Linked Lists - last node points back to the first node. 

• Specialized Linked Lists meant add, peek, and remove from the front or back of the list.

  • Queues (FIFO - First In, First Out - Think check-out Lines) - enqueue, dequeue

  • Stacks (LIFO - Last in, First Out - Think Pez/Quarter Dispenser, or a stack of plates) - Push, Pop

• Trees

  • Binary Tree

  • M-Trees

  • Heaps

• HashTables & Hashmaps (Key-Value)

• Graphs - an array of objects, each object providing a linked-list of objects they're connected to.

Check out the brief summary on search algorithms from MazeStar Curriculum: An Introduction to Computing, Self, and Society

• Breadth-First Search (BFS)

• Depth-First Search (DFS)

• Dijkstra's Algorithm

• A*

• Maximum Flow Algorithm

• Minimum Spanning Tree Algorithm

Write algorithms for various aspects of a Game

Chess

• Board Initialization

• Display Board

• Determine if a move is legal (for a piece at a given location)

• Move a Piece

• Get list of legal moves (for a piece at a given location)

  • remove legal moves that would checkmate your own king

• King in Check detection

• King in Checkmate detection

• Draw and Stalemate detection

• Player turn switch

• Board evaluation(score potential moves)

• AI Movement (based on Board Evaluation)

• Record Move (into a stack of moves)

• UndoMove (from the stack of moves)

• Optional Additions

  • Optimal chess piece move (based on a score)

  • Castling

  • En Passant

  • Pawn Promotion

Battleship

• isHit function to determine if a location on a BattleShip board was hit

Connect 4

• isValidMove

• PlacePiece

• CheckWin