Developing Usable Experiences

Linked lists and queues…again?

March 27th, 2007 9:00 pm —  177 views

It was warm today. And rainy. But the warm weather and the rain brings out smells of spring. Something released from the ground I think.

I went to section tonight for the class on “Search and Retrieval.” This section covered data structures. Kind of an odd inclusion but not unfamiliar to me. Though I could tell many in the class were wondering what this has to do with search and retrieval. I was wondering a little myself. This was covered in early computer science programming classes. Interesting, academic, but practical knowledge? I don’t really think so. The examples given in lecture didn’t help develop the appreciation for the subject. They were too low-level. Who cares about head and tail pointers? Conceptually these structures might be useful but connecting them to the overall subject was flimsy and left me feeling cheated somehow. This is graduate school and we’re having to draw the states of an array after push and pop operations?

I couldn’t help but think of Pez candy dispensers (push, pop) and gumball machines as queues. Sitting through section I found myself coming up with all kinds of analogies to describe the concepts and wondering why we weren’t discussing why these things are important and where using them makes sense.

Maybe I’m being to harsh. This is new to material to a lot of people and I can deal with my feelings of it being remedial. I hope for meatier subject matter in the semesters to come.

The drive home was in the pouring rain and I thought to myself that it was better than snow. I got home, opened a Crooked Tree Pale Ale and checked my email. Nothing exciting there. Mostly chatter. I wonder how Baldrick is doing these days and if he is still following this blog.

And sure, I’m worried about my Mother. For many reasons. But Bell’s Palsy isn’t one of them. Again I find myself laying awake at night wondering if there is anything I can do knowing that my options are slim. Talk is cheap. We all have to live our lives the best we know how. Maybe I’m just a cold-hearted bastard. Maybe this is all about learning the things you can’t control. Learning how much of life you can only watch and wait and avoid the passive-aggressive sink holes that try to take over your backyard.

Boy howdy, I’m a cheery one tonight. Better call it good.

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