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I am interested in learning about algorithms.

I have taken algorithms course, but didn't feel I really learned as much as I would have loved to. I am looking for some interesting software which I can build, which involves a good subset of all the important algorithms like B-trees, kd-trees, union-find, graph algorithms etc. may be involves some dynamic programming. Obviously it is not going to be something trivial. But I am ready to spend some time everyday to build this software. I feel this way I can appreciate algorithms and good software engineering. I am open to all kinds of suggestions.

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You don't need a piece of software, although that will help you learn where to use it. Just write the B-tree, and then write some tests that exercise it. You can even run some performance timers on it to see which operations (insert, delete, change, etc.) run faster than others. – Robert Harvey Feb 11 at 21:43
@RobertHarvey Care to help out on what we can do to resurrect this question from the pit of closed questions? He's a new user and this is not a good welcome mat. – Guy Coder Feb 11 at 22:04
A MIX or MMIX emulator so you can then use it to put to use implementing all those problems found in TAOCP. – MichaelT Feb 12 at 3:44

closed as off topic by MichaelT, gnat, Robert Harvey, World Engineer♦, ElYusubov Feb 11 at 22:00

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This is no small task but definelty one that will put a feather in your cap and make you dig deep to really understand what is going on. Write a compiler in an object-oriented language, i.e. use state, then write it again in a functional language trying not to use mutable variables, i.e. without state.

You can also take a crack at traslating code in AI books into your favorite language.

I was thinking of writing a compiler for C as it is got a fairly simple grammar. Do you think its worth doing it for an x86 architecture. I mean nothing close to gcc, but able to compile a small subset of C into x86?

Since you were after learning alogrithms, it was the first part of the compiler of getting it to the AST that I was thinking. If you want to create a compiler for C take a look at using LLVM instead of x86.

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Nah. He needs to write software for a sentient robot. – Robert Harvey Feb 11 at 21:53
@RobertHarvey Bazinga – Guy Coder Feb 11 at 21:56
@GuyCoder Thanks a ton. I was thinking of writing a compiler for C as it is got a fairly simple grammar. Do you think its worth doing it for an x86 architecture. I mean nothing close to gcc, but able to compile a small subset of C into x86? – mc_87 Feb 12 at 1:07

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