B-tree and 2-3 tree

Now I see.

As it turns out the operation of B-tree is probably much simpler than red-black tree. (In a way I think RB tree is actually more advanced).

You can also gauge the difficulty of the class by how much it discuss balanced trees.  In fact, most of the time, you will only see cursory description of them like insertion in an introductory class.

This is good.  That means if I review Chapter 16, I will probably know how to do all the problems in HW4.

status 20110621

Finished reading Chapter 16 on greedy algorithms.  I can understand activity scheduling and the knapsack problems.  It's also very illuminating. But I got to admit relating them with dynamic programming and matroid theory is currently beyond me. 

My conclusion is this - for this chapter and chapter 15 on dynamic programming.  It's very important to understand how the problems are related.  Though I know how to implement the algorithms, without understanding them, it's hard to go beyond the superficial.  

For now, I will leave it to my another reread.

Browse reading: 450/1144
Exercises up to 4-1.3(finished the brute force implementation)

Needs write up: P2.1c, 3-2.4, 3-2.8, P3.1

Exercises which are finished but not on paper: 1.1-2, 1.2-2, 1.2-3, P1-1, 4.1-5, 4.2-6, 4.2-7, 4.3-{1,2,4,5,6}, The whole Section 4.4, 4.5-1, P4.4(a-c), P4.6b, 5.1-{1,2}, whole Section 6.1, 6.2-{1,2,4,5,6}, 6.3-1, whole Section 7.1, 7.2-{1-3}, whole Section 7.3 and 7.4.3, 10.1-6, 10.1-7, 12.1-{1,2,4} 12.2-{2.3}, 12.4-4, P12.4(a), 15-1.1, 15.1-3, 15.3-3, 15.5, A.1-{1,2,3,4,5,7},  C.1-{2,4,5,7,8,9,14}, C.2-{1,2,4,5}, C.3-{1,2,10}, all in D.1. and D.2-2

Looking forward

I sit down and don't feel I want to start exercise of Chapter 4.  At the same time, Chapter 16 on Greedy algorithm doesn't seem to be interesting.  The key here I guess is that there are one or two algorithms which I don't grok so I couldn't proceed.

Then I look forward, there are many interesting topics I really want to know because they are always mentioned in literature.    There are also many topics which I genuinely just want to know more.  They are perhaps topics why I am thinking person.   For example, how to work on prime number.  how to work on string.   I always wonder how it can be done.    Some of these chapter, one of this will require me to read one single book.   This is exciting.

Though in any case, today is just not the time to proceed.  Let's slow down.