What is the order of study between these 3

[thankz]

theory of computation
data structures
algorithms
?

 

[jedishrfu]

I would think its data structures and algorithms at the same time and then theory of computation but thatss just my opinion.

You could look at your course catalog and see the numbering used as lower numbers mean take the course sooner or the courses may have prerequisites that may indicate the actual best order.

 

[thankz]

I'm not in school, trying to learn this on my own.

 

[jedishrfu]

Okay then I would do data structures first because if you know some programming it helps in organizing your data. Next I'd do algorithms where you learn how to walk the various data structures for sorting and searching tasks.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_structures

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithm

I think theory of computation gives you the big picture and gets into fundamental compiler design issues and Turing machines.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_computation

 

[thankz]

thanks, I also have a compiler design book.

 

[jedishrfu]

I actually liked these courses and over the course of my career have often constructed domain specific languages supported by data structures and algorithms internally to make things work better. I'm not a big fan of gui design because it sometimes gets in the way of program automation via scripts.

 

[thankz]

yea sometimes the unix shell is better, or now powershell in windows.

 

[jedishrfu]

If you're into novel languages too, you might like to check out groovy. It's a scripting language superset of Java having many features you wished Java had. Some programmers have used it to create domain specific languages, ie languages for a particular use like for a pharmacist where they could add ounces to milliters and get liters ie it does the conversions automagically thru clever Groovy programming.