UMBC CMSC 201 Fall '06 CSEE | 201 | 201 F'06 | lectures | news | help |
Now we will add a complex data type whose elements can be defined to be of an arbitrary type. This is our first real example of what is generally called a data structure .
A data structure is a way of storing data in a computer so that it can be used efficiently. Often a carefully chosen data structure will allow a more efficient algorithm to be used. A well-designed data structure allows critical operations to be performed on it using as few resources (both execution time and memory space) as possible.
Niklaus Wirth, a famous Computer Scientist who invented the Pascal programming language, coined the slogan: