Why learn DSA?

Why Learn Data Structures and Algorithms?

In this article, we will learn why every programmer should learn data structures and algorithms with the help of examples.

This article is for those who have just started learning algorithms and wondered how impactful it will be to boost their career/programming skills. It is also for those who wonder why big companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon hire programmers who are exceptionally good at optimizing Algorithms.

What are Algorithms?

Informally, an algorithm is nothing but a mention of steps to solve a problem. They are essentially a solution.

For example, an algorithm to solve the problem of factorials might look something like this:

Problem: Find the factorial of n

Initialize fact = 1
For every value v in range 1 to n:
    Multiply the fact by v
fact contains the factorial of n

Here, the algorithm is written in English. If it was written in a programming language, we would call it to code instead. Here is a code for finding the factorial of a number in C++.

int factorial(int n) {
    int fact = 1;
    for (int v = 1; v <= n; v++) {
        fact = fact * v;
    }
    return fact;
}

Programming is all about data structures and algorithms. Data structures are used to hold data while algorithms are used to solve the problem using that data.

Data structures and algorithms (DSA) goes through solutions to standard problems in detail and gives you an insight into how efficient it is to use each one of them. It also teaches you the science of evaluating the efficiency of an algorithm. This enables you to choose the best of various choices.