Why study Data Structures??

Most of us who study data structures in the 3rd semester, always wonder where is data structures used after all??

Except the most basic ones like Arrays, we are never ever able to understand where is it that we use these so complex data structures and is it important from an interview perspective.?? Well, let me tell you, it is one of the most asked topics in an interview and every good technology company will must and should ask you about it. This brings us to our next question, what is it that makes it so important?? Here is why:- For any program to run, it needs data and this data needs to be in primary memory, what we generally call as RAM. The way we organize data in this memory is data structures. I know you must be thinking, what would happen if I don't arrange this data? I can still access the memory and get the data. Yes, you are surely right, you can get the data but it might take much longer to retrieve it. A real life analogy to it would be to search for something in a messy room like the one shown.

You would obviously find it easy to find things in a room like the one on right. I do agree that maintaining a room like the one on right requires lot of efforts but trust me in technology it is surely worth its cost.

There are a few more technicalities like, the time needed to access a cache, RAM, Hard Disk drive increases in that order. Hence you need to make as less possible access to hard disk as you can. A practical example for this would be: assume you are asked to get something from a shop. You would first try to visit a shop as close to your house though he might charge you a little more, if not found there you would go to a super market, if not found there as well you would finally end up at the main market. Very similar to this is how a cache, RAM, hard disk works. The cache access time is very less and hence it is more costlier than the rest. For those of us who confuse data structures with DBMS, a very short explaination would be that DBMS is about storing data on your hard disk where as data structures is all about how to organize data on RAM. In the coming days, we will take up individual data structures and see where they fit and when is it that they are best used.

Scoring marks in VTU engineering made easy!!!

The most important thing to know about VTU is that studying and learning are two very different things here. I have seen my batch topper working for a Service based company, earning up a meager pay and a friend who surely had at least 3 backs every sem(yeah, I said at least :)), working for a much bigger company and earning way more.

Lets accept the fact, great companies do ask for great aggregate but here is the good news, scoring in VTU is not all that difficult. :) . A month of serious study before the exam if presented in the right way can fetch you as high as 75% in a Sem and yeah that's not too bad. :P. 

Time to spill the beans, I will share with you a few ideas so as to score easily:

1. Remember Vidya Balan's famous dialogue in Dirty Picture, Film sirf ek chiz par chalti hain "Entertainment, entertainment, entertainment". In not so different way, the most important factor is Presentation, presentation, presentation. Very surprisingly, this is what we ignore, assuming that engineering being a professional course, would have professional teachers and a fair evaluation. But this is far from reality. The teachers are highly professional but in all the wrong way and work only to make quick buck. There have been many instances where many of us got to the tune of 30-35 marks in revaluation. How sad!!!!

                 How do we make this presentation better?? Its no rocket science, remember the rules taught to us for our 10th Standard exams, the same holds good here as well.  Ideally, the first 2 pages of your answer booklet will set the stage, so be careful and avoid any scratches, stupid answers, self-assumed stories and anything which is not present in the Text book.

2. The second most important thing is Underlining the important key words, I have come across lot of instances where real bull crap was written but only a few important keywords were underlined. Guess what?? Oh!! you got it right :) it fetched a whopping 8 on 10 most of the time. :D:D From what I know, the evaluation is done based on a schema, which emphasizes on a few mandatory keywords in an answer and if by any means you get them, you have just made your tasks easier.

3. Write in points, many of the examiners still stick with the conventional mentality of "the bigger, the better " so if you have got your initial 2 pages right, there is a very high chance that they will just skim your paper and give you handful of marks.

4. Choose the Units carefully, it doesn't matter which one you choose, at the end all of them fetches you the same marks, so choose them smartly. An ideal way is to prepare 4 units perfectly and to read one 10 marks question from the 5th unit. Writing for 90, you stand a very good chance of landing up 70-75. 

 This is all for now, hope you find it useful. I will come back with more ideas and short cuts to assist you in practicals and internals. Watch out for more!!!

I finally got over my laziness and penned down a very tiny post about which units to choose for data structures. Hope you would like it. Which units to choose for data structures exam.

For all of us who are in 5th sem and are struggling with this sad and dry subject called Software Engineering, have a look Which units to choose for Software Engineering exams.