Week 3 of algorithms part 1

The third week of my coursera algorithms course has just gone by, but I didn't have enough time to finish all of the work.

I started the week OK by completing the lectures and exercises during the weekend. But during the week, I had to go into work early a few times, and I fell behind. I finally submitted the programming assignment this morning. I got a 98.something, with some deductions on performance in one of the test cases. I'd like to get all 100s, but oh well.

This week, we learned about merge sort and quick sort. Even though I was familiar with both of these sorting algorithms before, I think the lectures and exercises really helped me solidify my understanding of both of them.

For me, the most challenging part of the programming assignment was figuring out how to use a "Comparator". That's due to me not being a Java developer. Once again, the programming assignment had very little to do with the lectures or helping me understand sorting algorithms. I don't understand the point of these programming assignments.

This upcoming week, I have an extra day off (President's day) so hopefully, I can go over the previous week's job interview questions and still finish the week's assignments on time.