Latest Adventures!

Last week, we learned more about trees. After knowing the basics about trees, such as exactly what they are, and the various definitions that came along with the data type, we needed to learn how to implement them. Although we specifically learned how to implement binary trees only. These implementations can include things such as including roots, or children, obtaining the root value etc. We learned that the two most common methods of implementing trees are list of lists or by nodes and references. The list of lists approach represents each tree binary tree (a tree of 3 nodes), where the first element of the list is the root, the second is the left node, and the third is the right node. Now the right node or left node can be binary trees on their own if they have their own children, hence the list of lists representation. The nodes and references method is quite similar to the list of lists approach only there is no list being used. Instead objects of the BinaryTree class are used represent the the individual trees inside a tree.

Learning about the implementation of trees perhaps isn't the funnest thing ever, but it is interesting to notice that trees are recursive by nature. So naturally we can use the skills we learned when learning about recursion and apply them here!

Assignment one was definitely the most challenging thing this week. It did not include anything about trees, only stacks and recursion. This assignment is perhaps the most challenging assignment we've done to date (including the assignments we'd done in CSC108). The first part was pretty straight forward, but understanding how to implement (EFFECTIVELY!) a solution with not 3 stools, but 4, proved to be quite a challenge. My work lacked effectiveness, it was very efficient up to 6 cheeses, after which it drastically became less efficient. I tried several strategies to figure out how to make it simpler, such as using the GUIController to manually figure out my solutions and find a pattern, but unfortunately, that didn't help much. What I did notice was that if n - i just happened to be more than 3, then you would require the help of the starting stool to move all the n-i cheeses to an intermediate stool. This made a lot of sense, and I also proposed having two cases specifically for this. But it seemed that the case where n-i cheeses happened to be greater than 3 were, again, harder to figure out. Hopefully, I can ensure my success on the next assignment by starting earlier and perhaps thinking a lot harder.