More on Binary Tree (Week of Oct.28th)

This week, we studied a more advance binary tree structure: the binary search tree. I believe the binary search tree is more efficient when inserting and deleting nodes, just as binary search is more efficient than linear search. In addition, we also learned about running time analysis. I really appreciate how Professor Danny Heap decided to go through the running time analysis section now, because in CSC165, Professor Tom Fairgrieve is also teaching us how to analysis the efficiency of a program by checking the average number of steps, the maximum number of steps (worst case), as well as the minimum number of steps (best case). I found it easier to understand the concept of running time analysis because both professors are teaching closely related material, and I am able to grasp the idea behind better.

As for assignment 2, I found it shorter compare to assignment 1. It also takes less understanding of the program when coding. For instance, in assignment 1, I have to first understand what each class or method does, then proceed to coding the class or method. I remember I took a long time to understand the "add" method in assignment 1 because I did not know what it is supposed to do. However in assignment 2, the instructions are pretty clear and the programming part wasn't that hard. Nevertheless, I did have trouble with matching a string with a regular expression that contains the "*". As stated in the assignment 2 guidelines, "A regex of the form r + '*' matches string s if.....s has the form s1 + s2 +......+ sk where k > 0 and r matches every si". I had problem determining where to cut the string s such that each components will match the regular expression. My friend and I are stilling working on regex_match star node part. Hopefully we will manage to figure it out!