Re: [Algstudy-talk] Algorithm Study

[James L. <jam...@gm...>]

Hi Matt,

Thanks!  Yeah, I love the idea of visualizations that show how the
algorithms work.  I've been intrigued by the idea ever since my first
algorithms course when my professor showed us sorting algorithms in a
similar fashion.


Excellent!  I see three main areas of things to do:

  1. Add some new algorithms in Java
  2. Start algorithms in a new language
  3. Work on visualizations of algorithms

I have a Trac instance set up and there are a bunch of bugs in there
of things to do; they all fall into one of the above three categories.
 If one of those strikes your fancy, go for it!  Additionally, I only
listed some algorithms in the Trac bugs; So, if there is a particular
algorithm you want to implement, we'll add a bug to Trac and you can
start working on it.  And, of course, I would be happy to provide
guidance and help.  :-)  The URL:

  https://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/algstudy/


Good question about the wiki-like site.  Two thoughts come to mind for me.

First, the goal of algorithm study is to augment the types of
information that already exist.  The two specific areas on which
Algorithm Study focuses are:  1) real implementations of common and
less-common algorithms in a variety of languages, and 2) visualization
tools to help in gaining a deeper understanding of the algorithms.
Additionally, I want the text included with the code to reference the
more traditional resources that are available (books, websites, wikis,
articles, papers, ...).

Second, the Javadocs for the java implementations are posted on the
AlgorithmStudy.com website.  Since much of the discussion is placed in
the Javadoc comments, these pages become a pretty good reference on
their own.  We may be able to create additional documentation like
this from source code in other languages, but it will be very similar
in nature.


Finally, a few other notes.

1. Join the mailing list.  Let's make future discussion open on the
list so it gets some activity.  (I'm going to send a selection of this
response to the list as well.)

2. Please read through the links under "Contributing" on the Algorithm
Study website (left menu bar) and the FAQ.  There isn't too much there
yet, but they answer some questions and should set the tone for some
of the development processes I want the project to follow.


Best,

James


----- Original Message -----
From: "Matthew Rathbone"
To: "James Linder"
Sent: Friday, December 4, 2009 10:26:07 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: Algorithm Study

Hey James,

So I checked out your Algorithm Study site, love the visualizations,
that whole thing will be incredible when you have the full set of
algorithms!

I'd like to help contribute at some point, I was thinking maybe over
winter break to start with, then on from there? Let me know what you'd
like to get done next and what I need to do to submit algorithms.

Do you think it would be worth having a wiki-like site so that people
can read your algorithms and what you write about them without having
to get the source code?

Have a good Friday (and weekend).

Matt