OT: Should I read CLRS over the summer?

Submitted by Apureidiot on

Thanks to the advice of fellow mgobloggers, I'm currently wrapping up the projects for EECS 280 that I've been doing on my own. I was wondering if it would be nice for me to read C++ Primer and CLRS over the summer, or do something else before attending UM this fall.

Jasper

June 10th, 2018 at 12:27 PM ^

OP: I wouldn't sacrifice any priceless fun of the you'll-only-be-18-once variety, but if you can spare some time, sure. It may mean that you you'll be able to do "something else" (like, say, attend a concert at the music school) some night when you're at UMich.

Swayze Howell Sheen

June 10th, 2018 at 12:41 PM ^

useful stuff to know, in no particular order:
- algorithms (CLRS is good, I like Skiena's alg design book)
- prog languages (C++ or Java or Go for more "serious" stuff, Python or similar for fun stuff, maybe Rust if you are a hipster or want to be)
- systems (no great intro book, but Patt/Patel and/or Bryant/OHalloran are pretty good)

Doing projects and hands-on stuff to learn is always good, instead of just reading.

good luck! and make sure to have fun outside of computing too ...

 

LSAClassOf2000

June 10th, 2018 at 2:37 PM ^

I mean, I don't mean to sound disagreeable, but this IS MGoBlog, the only sports blog that I am aware that had several threads devoted to investment strategy one summer, and some lively discussion at that. 

It's actually one of the quirks of this segment of the fanbase - the high level of education and wide array of interests - that makes this place that much more entertaining honestly. 

Elwood

June 10th, 2018 at 1:19 PM ^

I’d go with something shorter, like Dasgupta’s book (I have it but haven’t read it yet). Being good with your eecs 203 (discrete math) should help too. 

source: current phd student in theoretical computer science/eecs. I didn’t major in CS so I’ve never take a true algorithms course despite having two research papers on algorithms. 

bronxblue

June 10th, 2018 at 1:30 PM ^

Knuth's Art of Computer Programming is pretty good as well.

 

Though I say this as someone who, despite having an MS in Computer Engineering hates all discussion of algorithms, don't sweat trying to get ahead of your classes.  You'll learn what you need to by doing, and frankly the people I've worked with who hyper-focus on pre-optimizations of their code and try to rewrite a labguage's red-black tree data structure because it's "too slow" tend to get themselves into trouble.  Enjoy your summer, do some light reading, and if you really want to get better at your developer skills sign up for something like Kaggle or TopCoder and at least work on some semi-realistic problems.

Good luck.

ST3

June 10th, 2018 at 1:56 PM ^

Between high school and college I worked the 7PM to 11:30PM shift at Meijer and spent the afternoons trying to get a tan while listening to Appetite for Destruction, over and over and over again. Enjoy your youth.