Hello all, Following Rajiv's lead here comes the Data Structure for the week. Well, This being our inaugural session, we will talk about the most basic of Data Structures, linked lists. Now, we all know what linked lists are so I'll skip the pleasantries. There are a LOT of questions that are based on Linked lists which i simply cannot elaborate. But one good question i came acroos is sorting. Find out which algorithm is best for linked lists and you might be surprised. the other common problems are: 1. Reversing a linked list 2. Swapping in pairs of two 3. Loops in a linked list- detection and removal ( There is an indigenous soln to this :) 4. Finding point where two lists merge 5. Finding common ancestors This is the discussion week for linked lists and I'd suggest we get all tricky questions out of the way by this week -- So I'm pretty sure that i have left out and it would be for the betterment of the group if people follow up on this mail with additions One Suggestion i have is that we start writing code for the above problems and the ones that come in reply to this mail. We'll then compare code based on certain criteria and then paste the best implementation, Both the fastest and the cleanest. That way we'll have the opportunity to learn from other people's code and also correct errors in ours, again both in terms of syntax and decoration. I guess We could even use the Prog contest evaluator to judge the code. This is well applicable to people who are adept at these solns too. Think about it, it's just a few minutes of coding which is worth the effort. Te second suggestion is the idea of expert talks. This is to boost our general awareness of what's hot right now around the IT world. Each week, preferably on Friday, we could have one guy/girl from class to give us a talk on what they best, let's say for about 15-30 minutes. This again is inspired from Linux User group meetings where it is a weekly event. That way everyone can get some amount of foresight and help us learn something new. we could do it coming Friday itself, just for the heck of starting it. We could even call our prof.s to give us special seminars.(for what went on at the end of the 2nd hour, we can be assured that at least one prof. is more than eager to be involved). And from this point on, I'm assuming that nobody will have an objection with this idea.In case of such a rarity please do tell us the reason. For this Friday, I would like one of these people to give a talk, since i kinda know what they are good at 1. Prashanth Mohan (anything open source) 2. Rajiv Mathews (LISP? VIm) 3. Venkatanathan (Java) 4. Venkateshwaran (Mathematics related to computer science, Python) 5. Ravi Shankar.T (Python, Constraint Programming) And a word of advice, you don't have to be an expert to give an expert talk. All you need is the willingness to learn. you could take up some topic in advance, work on it for a couple of weeks and present a talk. People(especially the people mentioned above) cannot 'escape' without giving talks, you'll have to do it at some point of time. The last thing I'd like to add is that we should adopt some convention to way subjects are specified in Group mail(again standard LUG practise). Question Papers and Solutions to them would be tagged [Questions] and [Solutions]. Class related messages would contain [notice] Discussions and queries would be tagged [discuss] Administration related issues would be labelled [admin] Off topic Subjects should contain [OT] (prashanth, did i miss anything?) Well, That's it for now. The one thing i want all you ppl out there to do is to participate. And that doesn't mean just reading these mails, reply to them, raise you doubts, start your own topics and this should start right from this mail. Particularly i want the following people to explicitly reply to this mail, even if they have no objections (After all, i need somebody to blame if this group goes dormant ;) Shankar Lingam,Rajiv, Prashanth,Pradeep,Varun,Venkatanathan,Venkateshwaran,SriRam(both),Siddarth,Ragupathy and from the Girls Ramya(both), Sruthi Kannan, Sneha(both), Sonali, Sangeetha and Usha. Please ask people who don't check their mails regularly to read through this mail ASAP. Remember, we are running short of time and we have a long way to go. Expecting expecting ur enthusiasism Ravi Shankar -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well," said Owl, "the customary procedure in such cases is as follows." "What does Crustimoney Proseedcake mean?" said Pooh. "For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother me." "It means the Thing to Do." "As long as it means that, I don't mind," said Pooh humbly.