Algorithms and Data Structures in Think Python

[Vic Hood]

Im looking to learn Data Structures and their implementation . Does Think Python provide any sort of insight into them?
Thanks!

[chris webster]

You might be interested in "Python Algorithms" by Magnus Lie Hetland. It doesn't cover data structures.

[Allen Downey]

Teaching data structures and algorithms in Python is funny, because most standard data structures are either built into the language or available in libraries. So it's hard to motivate students to reimplement them.

On the other hand, Python is an excellent language for implementing algorithms: if you take the pseudocode from a book like Cormen, Leiserson and Rivest, you can usually translate it into Python with very little effort.

In Think Python Appendix B I cover basic analysis of algorithms, and as an example, I write an implementation of a hash table in Python. On one hand, that's a silly thing to do, because Python dictionaries are hashtables. On the other hand, the code is short and readable and (I think) makes it easy to understand how/why hashtables work.

Allen