Using randomization in the teaching of data structures and algorithms

Authors:
Michael T. Goodrich;Roberto Tamassia
Affiliations:
Dept. of Computer Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD;Dept. of Computer Science, Brown University, Providence, RI
Venue:
SIGCSE '99 The proceedings of the thirtieth SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
Year:
1999

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Abstract

We describe an approach for incorporating randomization in the teaching of data structures and algorithms. The proofs we include are quite simple and can easily be made a part of a Freshman-Sophomore Introduction to Data Structures (CS2) course and a Junior-Senior level course on the design and analysis of data structures and algorithms (CS7/DS&A). The main idea of this approach is to show that using randomization in data structures and algorithms is safe and can be used to significantly simplify efficient solutions to various computational problems. We illustrate this approach by giving examples of the use of randomization in some traditional topics from CS2 and DS&A.