Frequently Asked Questions

Note: I am putting these here because students have asked them in the past, this is not a reflection of what will be on quizzes. 

Q: Are there degrees of balanced or is it a black and white thing?

A: I guess you could have balanced and unbalanced subtrees in a tree that is unbalanced an that might be important or relevant in some algorithms but generally we just talk about balanced and not balanced. 

Q: Why don't we always balance the list first before putting them in a bst?

A: We might not always know the whole list before we start constructing and using the tree. You add the information you have as you get it. Also the time complexity would be worse to both order the list and then add the list to the tree.