[HN Gopher] Data Structure Visualizations
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Data Structure Visualizations
Author : yurish
Score : 468 points
Date : 2021-07-06 07:29 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cs.usfca.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cs.usfca.edu)
| cconroy wrote:
| Possibly the coolest data structure to visualize was invented to
| visualize complex data: zig-zag from the great Ted Nelson.
| joejoesvk wrote:
| this website was a life saver during uni
| mihaic wrote:
| I worked on algorithm visualizers in the past and found the
| effort necessary to get something better than static pictures and
| text to be immense. Every single combination of data structure
| and algorithm needs to have a semi-custom designed visualizer in
| order for it to be easier to understand and appealing.
|
| A human tutor can take pauses when something isn't clear, but a
| visualizer is forced to choose between checking for the user's
| understanding and not interrupting the flow.
|
| Link on BFS and Topological Sorting for instance:
|
| https://csacademy.com/lesson/breadth_first_search
|
| https://csacademy.com/lesson/topological_sorting
| jonahx wrote:
| Yes.
|
| Most of the time, what you want is not a clever visualization
| of a complex algorithm, but a simple distillation of its
| essence. Static diagrams are usually simpler than
| visualizations. And if you feel the inherent complexity can
| only be conveyed with animation, it's likely you haven't fully
| distilled your understanding.
| pithon wrote:
| Some concepts are infinitely easier to understand with an
| animation.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-twister_mechanism
| jonahx wrote:
| Yeah, that's why I used the qualifiers "most of the time"
| and "usually".
|
| But even in that example, while the animation instantly
| conveys the high-level idea, it's still a bit magical: "I
| get what's happening, but not exactly how." To understand
| in detail what's going on, carefully chosen freeze frames
| with an explanation would probably be better, especially
| complemented by the animation. The ability to slow down,
| reverse, and interact could work too here.
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| Right. There are also things called Optical Illusions
| which do not really explain anything but mislead you into
| thinking you see something which is not there. Optical
| illusions are often animated so seeing this Anti-twister
| mechanism makes me suspect I'm perhaps looking at some
| kind of optical illusion.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| There was a great video on how a car's differential works
| where they start by building it out of sticks and
| demonstrate how to progress from there to helical gears.
| That approach made it click for me while nothing else did
| prior, including playing with an actual differential.
| jonahx wrote:
| You must mean:
|
| https://youtu.be/yYAw79386WI?t=214
|
| I agree it's a great explanation, and the video format
| feels right for this. Still, it's not the video per se
| that makes this great, but the way the concept has been
| broken down into simple (almost unmoving) parts for you,
| and is then built up in steps.
| laszlokorte wrote:
| I really like the style of your visualizations!
|
| I built something similar while learning for my algorithms
| course ate university. [0]
|
| It not fully polished yet and not algorithms I had planned to
| implement are done yet. But I learned a lot doing it and some
| algorithms like "rotating calippers" or delaunay triangulation
| are really fun to watch.
|
| Usage: click the canvas to create nodes, drag from their border
| to connect them. Click the "algorithms" tab on the top and
| select an algorithm to run in the right sidebar. The use the
| slider to step through the result.
|
| [0] https://algorithms.laszlokorte.de
| pjmlp wrote:
| This is a great learning tool.
| 25x98B wrote:
| I'm taking data structures during summer and this was incredibly
| helpful when we were doing trees.
| amichail wrote:
| Related: Check out my visual programming approach to teaching
| binary tree algorithms:
|
| https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/545265
|
| http://opsis.sourceforge.net
| edem wrote:
| I would have loved to see how a HAMT or a CHAMP works!
| dang wrote:
| Some past related threads:
|
| _Data Structure Visualizations (2011)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19082943 - Feb 2019 (33
| comments)
|
| _Data Structure Visualizations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15480517 - Oct 2017 (9
| comments)
|
| _Animated Data Structures_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15306593 - Sept 2017 (1
| comment)
|
| _Data Structure Visualizations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14064865 - April 2017 (2
| comments)
|
| _Data Structure Visualizations (2011)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10183811 - Sept 2015 (3
| comments)
|
| _Data Structure Visualizations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6928904 - Dec 2013 (35
| comments)
|
| _Data Structure Visualization_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2505862 - May 2011 (7
| comments)
| Gehinnn wrote:
| If you are into visualizations, you also might find my debug
| visualizer extension for vscode helpful:
|
| https://github.com/hediet/vscode-debug-visualizer
|
| When debugging JS, there is a nice way to provide visualizations
| for application specific objects without touching the application
| code.
|
| Combined with time travel debugging which allows to step
| backwards, it is really easy to understand complex algorithms:
|
| https://github.com/hediet/vscode-delorean-js-debug
|
| The visualization library is independent and open source. There
| is also a rust cli and a web playground. I'm very open for
| contributions! (especially new visualizations)
| pjmlp wrote:
| Looks quite nice.
|
| Maybe you already know this as background work for your
| plugins, but Symantec C++ was one of the first IDEs to provide
| this kind of tooling.
|
| I had quite some envy not having similar feature on Borland
| compilers.
| aehlsf wrote:
| This is very interesting! I'm taking DSA next semester and
| learning on my own over the summer. this visual will be very
| helpful.
| kuharich wrote:
| Past comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10183811
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