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digitalmars.D.learn - Data structures and algorithms in D?

reply eastanon <biorelated gmail.com> writes:
Are there reading resources on Data structures and Algorithms in 
D? There are several such books in the C/C++ and Java world and 
many senior/experienced D users might have come across them in C. 
But for people who join D after reading Ali's book, a data 
structures and algorithms book in D would be a great next step. 
i.e. a book that uses D's idioms and best practices. Any such 
material in development or recommended blog posts?
Oct 07 2018
next sibling parent reply bauss <jj_1337 live.dk> writes:
On Sunday, 7 October 2018 at 20:27:47 UTC, eastanon wrote:

 Are there reading resources on Data structures and Algorithms 
 in D? There are several such books in the C/C++ and Java world 
 and many senior/experienced D users might have come across them 
 in C. But for people who join D after reading Ali's book, a 
 data structures and algorithms book in D would be a great next 
 step. i.e. a book that uses D's idioms and best practices. Any 
 such material in development or recommended blog posts?


http://ddili.org/ders/d.en/index.html

Pretty sure it also covers stuff like that.
Oct 07 2018
parent reply eastanon <biorelated gmail.com> writes:
On Monday, 8 October 2018 at 05:18:35 UTC, bauss wrote:

 On Sunday, 7 October 2018 at 20:27:47 UTC, eastanon wrote:

 Are there reading resources on Data structures and Algorithms 
 in D? There are several such books in the C/C++ and Java world 
 and many senior/experienced D users might have come across 
 them in C. But for people who join D after reading Ali's book, 
 a data structures and algorithms book in D would be a great 
 next step. i.e. a book that uses D's idioms and best 
 practices. Any such material in development or recommended 
 blog posts?


 http://ddili.org/ders/d.en/index.html

 Pretty sure it also covers stuff like that.


But this is a great introductory book it is not a dedicated text 
on algorithms and data structures. Have you read it?
Oct 07 2018
parent reply bauss <jj_1337 live.dk> writes:
On Monday, 8 October 2018 at 06:15:46 UTC, eastanon wrote:

 On Monday, 8 October 2018 at 05:18:35 UTC, bauss wrote:

 On Sunday, 7 October 2018 at 20:27:47 UTC, eastanon wrote:

 Are there reading resources on Data structures and Algorithms 
 in D? There are several such books in the C/C++ and Java 
 world and many senior/experienced D users might have come 
 across them in C. But for people who join D after reading 
 Ali's book, a data structures and algorithms book in D would 
 be a great next step. i.e. a book that uses D's idioms and 
 best practices. Any such material in development or 
 recommended blog posts?


 http://ddili.org/ders/d.en/index.html

 Pretty sure it also covers stuff like that.


 But this is a great introductory book it is not a dedicated 
 text on algorithms and data structures. Have you read it?


I don't think there are any specific on data structures and 
algorithm only, most books seem to be generic.
Oct 08 2018
parent reply Russel Winder <russel winder.org.uk> writes:
On Mon, 2018-10-08 at 11:12 +0000, bauss via Digitalmars-d-learn wrote:

 On Monday, 8 October 2018 at 06:15:46 UTC, eastanon wrote:

 On Monday, 8 October 2018 at 05:18:35 UTC, bauss wrote:

 On Sunday, 7 October 2018 at 20:27:47 UTC, eastanon wrote:

 Are there reading resources on Data structures and Algorithms=20
 in D? There are several such books in the C/C++ and Java=20
 world and many senior/experienced D users might have come=20
 across them in C. But for people who join D after reading=20
 Ali's book, a data structures and algorithms book in D would=20
 be a great next step. i.e. a book that uses D's idioms and=20
 best practices. Any such material in development or=20
 recommended blog posts?


=20
 http://ddili.org/ders/d.en/index.html
=20
 Pretty sure it also covers stuff like that.


=20
 But this is a great introductory book it is not a dedicated=20
 text on algorithms and data structures. Have you read it?


=20
 I don't think there are any specific on data structures and=20
 algorithm only, most books seem to be generic.


Is there actually a need for such a book?

All books labelled "Algorithms and Data Structures" or "Data Structures and
Algorithms" and especially those with "Using <X>" in the title for some
programming language X, are invariably textbooks designed for use in
university courses =E2=80=93 usually follow on courses from introductory pr=
ogramming
if an X is mentioned. Given the current use of programming languages in
universities, X is drawn from {Java, Python}. C++ used to be in the set but=
 I
suspect no longer. I cannot imagine D will get into that set any time soon,
though it would be nice if it did.

All to often the code in the textbooks is a we bit second rate. :-(

The purpose of these books is for students to learn the academic material, =
not
the creation of production libraries. Most programming language libraries h=
ave
all the algorithms coded up in the libraries. And for those algorithms that
are not, this level of textbook is rarely going to be the right tool to hel=
p
the coding.

The real question is then, does Phobos have all the right algorithms and da=
ta
structures in it. It has Red-Black Tree, but I suspect not B-Tree, B+-Tree,=
 or
B*-Tree. Is this an issue?

I see that Go and Rust are basically in the same boat, but they have:

https://www.golangprograms.com/data-structure-and-algorithms.html

https://github.com/EbTech/rust-algorithms

respectively. Doing something similar for D might be worthwhile.

Also of course D stuff perhaps needn't be in Phobos. Rust has crates, D has
Dub. Very little problem starting an A&DS package for D for production
purposes without having to bother with getting stuff into Phobos.

--=20
Russel.
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200
41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077
London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk
Oct 08 2018
parent eastanon <biorelated gmail.com> writes:
On Monday, 8 October 2018 at 13:47:44 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:

 The purpose of these books is for students to learn the 
 academic material, not the creation of production libraries. 
 Most programming language libraries have all the algorithms 
 coded up in the libraries. And for those algorithms that are 
 not, this level of textbook is rarely going to be the right 
 tool to help the coding.

 The real question is then, does Phobos have all the right 
 algorithms and data structures in it. It has Red-Black Tree, 
 but I suspect not B-Tree, B+-Tree, or B*-Tree. Is this an issue?

 I see that Go and Rust are basically in the same boat, but they 
 have:

 https://www.golangprograms.com/data-structure-and-algorithms.html

 https://github.com/EbTech/rust-algorithms

 respectively. Doing something similar for D might be worthwhile.


Thank you Russel. I think it would be very worthwhile for D. For 
experienced developers it might not be an issue, but as you 
highlight, for anyone who is learning or taking an algorithms 
course such a resource would be useful. Borrowing from the 
rust-algorithms readme, this would be for:
1. Students and educators
2. Potentially for D programming advocacy
3. Serve as a quick reference for implementing basic algorithms 
and ideally improve on the same.
Oct 08 2018
prev sibling next sibling parent ShadoLight <ettienne.gilbert gmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 7 October 2018 at 20:27:47 UTC, eastanon wrote:

 Are there reading resources on Data structures and Algorithms 
 in D? There are several such books in the C/C++ and Java world 
 and many senior/experienced D users might have come across them 
 in C. But for people who join D after reading Ali's book, a 
 data structures and algorithms book in D would be a great next 
 step. i.e. a book that uses D's idioms and best practices. Any 
 such material in development or recommended blog posts?


AFAIK there is no specific book that focuses and delves into Data 
structures and Algorithms specifically, however there are some 
books (besides Ali's) that touches on it - at least in a limited 
sense specific to the topics in each book.

For example, Adam D. Ruppe's 'D Cookbook' has a chapter on 
Ranges, which also covers using ranges when implementing/using 
algorithms.

Likewise Michael Parker's 'Learning D' book has 2 chapters that 
touches on Ranges and Algorithms:
- Chapter 6: Understanding Ranges
- Chapter 7: Composing Functional Pipelines with Algorithms
and Ranges

I'm not sure about Andrei's TDPL book - I read it so long ago I 
cannot remember. (And I don't have my copy with me so I cannot 
check). And Kai Nacke's 'D Web Development' book does not really 
cover these topics either.

Of the above-mentioned 2 books (that do cover it), I think 
Michael's book is the better resource at the moment (that I am 
aware of anyway). But I'm not sure if I will claim that it covers 
these topics better than Ali's book at the moment - so maybe it 
is not going to be good enough for you either.

Ali's book anyway seems to be regularly updated (since he 
self-publishes it) to be up-to-date with the latest in the D 
language/ecosystem, so I think we will see any new info on this 
in Ali's book before any other book manages to bring out a new 
edition (the other books just regularly published - so are in 
effect really snapshots of the language at the time of 
publication).

Of course, this is besides the problem that containers are 
(still!) somewhat lacking in D compared to other languages - you 
just need to look at [1] to see that.

[1] https://dlang.org/phobos/std_container.html
Oct 08 2018
prev sibling parent Alex <sascha.orlov gmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 7 October 2018 at 20:27:47 UTC, eastanon wrote:

 Are there reading resources on Data structures and Algorithms 
 in D? There are several such books in the C/C++ and Java world 
 and many senior/experienced D users might have come across them 
 in C. But for people who join D after reading Ali's book, a 
 data structures and algorithms book in D would be a great next 
 step. i.e. a book that uses D's idioms and best practices. Any 
 such material in development or recommended blog posts?


Data structures and algorithms are somewhat abstract from the 
language, I think.
See e.g., Introduction to Algorithms; Thomas H. Cormen, Charles 
E. Leiserson, Ronald L. Rivest

Nevertheless, some references of applications are already 
mentioned above. The books are very cool, by the way.

There are also some online references, which are not mentioned 
yet e.g.,
https://p0nce.github.io/d-idioms/
http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Category:D

The standard library itself:
https://github.com/dlang/phobos

And the package library build by enthusiasts at
https://code.dlang.org

And last but not least, this forum. Many ideas emerge here from 
the collaborative work of experts from different areas. They are 
ready to assist in many questions at any time of the day.
Oct 08 2018