Type of file: PDF
Language of the book: English
Description :
Historically, a course on data structures has been a mainstay of most computer science departments. Over the last 18 years, however, the focus of this course has broadened considerably. The topic of data structures has now been sub-sumed under the broader topic of abstract data types (ADTs)—the study of classes of objects whose logical behavior is defined by a set of values and a set of operations.
The term abstract data type describes a comprehensive collection of data values and operations; the term data structures refers to the study of data and how to repre-sent data objects within a program; that is, the implementation of structured rela-tionships. The shift in emphasis is representative of the move towards more abstraction in computer science education. We now are interested in the study of the abstract properties of classes of data objects in addition to how the objects might be represented in a program. Johannes J. Martin put it succinctly: ". . . depending on the point of view, a data object is characterized by its type (for the user) or by its structure (for the implementor).
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