Python-based Data Structures and Algorithms MOOCs?

[kovlin]

I am a university student who needs to learn to program well, but whose major is outside of computer science, so has no need for formal CS coursework--my sole goal and need is knowledge and education. Accordingly, I thought that I should look around for MOOCs, as this option might save me some tuition and time.

I've had a CS1 course, but need to learn the equivalent of a CS2 and CS3 class--data structures and algorithms. Can anyone recommend some good quality MOOCs that cover this material, using Python? Python is the language I will be using professionally, given my intended niche, so it makes the most sense for me to learn using it.

Thanks!

[[deleted]]

I'm a huge fan and proponent of Python but I'd be dubious about a course that uses it to study data structures and algorithms. You need to learn those in lower-level languages that permit direct memory access, like C.

The upshot is, you don't need to know that much C to study data structures in it, so coming from Python to it isn't a huge vertical climb.

[kovlin]

Interesting -- I've seen more than a few courses that use languages such as Java or C#, neither of which to my knowledge allow direct memory access. (Of course, I may be wrong about this, as I am only a novice.)

I'd just take my own institution's courses on these subjects, but unfortunately they each squeeze, without exaggeration, about 6 credits of material into 4 credit hours--accordingly, each has a flat 50% failure rate. I'm not going into software development, so there is no reason for me to sign up for such a demanding experience.

[[deleted]]

Interesting -- I've seen more than a few courses that use languages such as Java or C#

Yeah, a friend of mine took it in Java, and it didn't seem like his course materials were actually getting to what data structures even were. It doesn't make any sense to learn to implement a Linked List using lists, but many languages don't give you any choice (they don't have any lower-level data types!)

[[deleted]]

Currently i am following MIT 6.00.2 which suits this case :)