Teaching programming -- circular data structures

[Bjorn Pettersen]

> From: Roy Smith [mailto:roy at panix.com] 

[snip: how Roy came to create a circular data structure]

> Is this a common thing?  I, as an experienced programmer, found the 
> circular references perfectly reasonable, but it seemed to blow his 
> mind.  Have people teaching programming (or, more precisely, data 
> structures) see this before; that people have problems understanding 
> circular data structures the first time they're exposed to 
> the concept?

We had the same problem teaching recursion to first year CS students, so
I think it's pretty common. Once they got used to inductive proofs most
of them seemed to "get it" however, so my current theory is that some
sound CS theory makes for a better programmer <surprise ;-)>

You could always show him a fundamental data structures text that covers
AVL or Red-Black trees <wink>.

-- bjorn