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Learning Algorithms by Visualizing Algorithms

Two visual tools for understanding the most basic guts of computing.

​In the popular imagination, algorithms exist as vaguely sinister black boxes of vaguely defined Process. In goes something and out comes uncomfortably accurate information about you-the-consumer's tastes and/or increasingly wacky shit like driving ability and/or basic machine intelligence and human-like learning abilities.

When I come across someone really into the idea of kids learning how to code, as like a basic life or academic skill, my usual retort is they should be learning algorithms. This is in part because it's the one thing I wish people understood better about technology and its world but also because, after algorithms, the rest is just syntax.

A good way to get into algorithms is to actually see them and how really simple they tend to be (thanks, recursion) and even how elegant a good algorithm is. So, I've been intermittently gazing at ​VisuAlgo, which is a suite of line-by-line algorithm/data structure visualizations. It's more geared toward computer science students, but armed with Google it'd be reasonably digestible (and worth the effort).

You have to actually go to the site to see the animations live, but it's an educational good time. Promise.

For another look and for some more complex/specific algorithms, Oregon State University (disclosure: where I go to school) maintains ​Vamonos, which is less pretty but accomplishes the same goal. It also includes Dijkstra's algorithm, which it so happens we were just talking about.