how important data structures are and best way to learn them

Comments

[Ben Halpern]

Data structures are something you use every day, but it's questionable whether you need a real formal education in them as long as you know how to make use of arrays, hash objects and databases etc.

[Muhammad]

I mean you can learn data structures on your own

[Muhammad]

But do we really need formal education for that

[Donald Merand]

Nobody "needs" formal education. There's not some secret knowledge that computer science teachers have that the rest of us could not obtain some other way.

Formal education is a service that you pay for with time and (in the US at least) money. If you have the time and money, it can be a good value if you choose your school and teachers wisely. In my experience, my data structures + algorithms teachers pushed me beyond what I would have been likely to practice myself at the time, and thus forced me to get better faster than I would have on my own. But now that I'm a bit more experienced at training myself, I find myself doing more exercises of my own volition, and I improve at the same rate or faster, without teachers.

If you're no good at practicing or you need encouragement, you'll probably find more success by enrolling in classes. But it's not a requirement for learning.

[Muhammad]

This is so true that why I tell most of my friends you don't need school to learn most of this stuff you can do it on your own too.

[Donald Merand]

You can, with the strong caveat that you have to be very very motivated to learn all of it on your own.

[Muhammad]

Totally agree with you