How to Start Learning DSA?
In the journey of programming, every programmer comes across a point where they want to solve a problem in a more efficient way. While finding a way out of this, they eventually come to know about the term DSA. Now before jumping on how to start learning DSA, let us first know what the term DSA actually means.
DSA Full Form: The Full form of DSA is Data Structures and Algorithms. As the name itself suggests, it is a combination of two separate yet interrelated topics – Data Structure and Algorithms.
In this journey to acquire a good grasp of DSA and become efficient in it, every programmer faces a big challenge “How to start learning DSA?”. In this article, we will be focusing on everything about DSA and how to begin your journey of DSA from scratch.
What is Data Structure? A data structure is a particular way of storing and organizing data in our devices to use the data efficiently and effectively. The main idea behind using data structures is to minimize the time and space complexities. An efficient data structure takes minimum memory space and requires minimum time to execute the data.
What is Algorithm? Algorithm means a process or set of well-defined instructions that are typically used to solve a particular group of problems or perform a specific type of calculation. To explain in simpler terms, it is a set of operations performed in a step-by-step manner to execute a task.
Why Should you learn Data Structure and Algorithm? Before moving to the question of “How to start learning”, first, let us look at why should we learn data structures and algorithms.
Every basic, as well as advanced, software and internet service, even searching a topic on the internet, all use one or other data structure or algorithm to implement. So in order to understand how any automated software or service works, it is a must to learn about data structures and algorithms first.
For example, like in our daily life, in order to pour a glass of water from a bottle, we need to implement a series of steps, such as
Place the glass in a vertical position with the mouth upwards Open the bottle cap Pick the bottle up Bend the bottle such that the mouth of the bottle is aligned with the mouth of the glass The water will start pouring. Once the glass is filled with water, straight up the bottle again. Keep the bottle down Close the lid of the bottle.
Although these steps seem very basic, they need to be implemented in the same manner every time to get the desired output. As per the definition above, we already know that any set of rules to do a specific task is known as an algorithm. Hence the above-mentioned steps can be distinguished as an algorithm, and the glass can be distinguished as a data structure to store water. Therefore, data structure and algorithms can be seen everywhere in our day-to-day life, and it is very necessary to understand them to perform our daily tasks in life.