What are Data Structures?

what are data structures the reason we are talking about this is because if you look at the internet everyone says if you want to get into this company or that company they will ask you a question Based on data structures and algorithms so first of all why such a hype and what exactly data structures are so before we get into data structures let's talk about data see the entire software industry is based on data when you do a course on ID which we call information technology it's not about technology it's about information because we work

with information so data is everything so it doesn't matter what technology you learn you basically learn or you work on it so that you can work with data example think about programming languages why do we use programming languages to process the data why do we use database to store the data why do we use AI to generate data or to understand data right I mean just to bring it down everything is data now then question arise what is data structures now if you talk about any programming language we have something called primitive data types if

you want to store a number we store that in integer if you want to store a a text you store that in a string if you want to store a character you store that in a character of course depend upon different languages the term or the way you store it changes but ultimately you have some types to it where you store the data but what if you have bunch of data and if you want to store them it's not just about storing data anyone can do that it's about how do you store data efficiently and

you can also save some memory the thing is if you simply dump the data you are expanding the memory and if you want to search something from the data will be difficult and that's why storing that data efficiently is very important and that's where data structures comes into picture so data structure is a way to organize and store data efficiently okay so when you say efficiently it means two things first in in terms of performance and also in terms of the memory now what about performance now think about this if you if you talk about

any software application which we use it can be a normal calculator or it can be an application like Amazon website or any application which we use a banking application as well now what we do in that application is we use some features using which you can compute something you can process something example on calculator you calculate on the banking website you transfer money so what you're doing is you are basically building an application which will do some processing and the way you build an application is through algorithms now what algorithms set of instructions let's say

if I want to add two numbers it's very simple you what you do is you say take two values from the user then perform the operation and give the value back to the user now those are the steps right those are the instructions now what I have mentioned the instructions those are called pseudocode because we're not actually typing a code here we're not being specific to a language let's say C C plus plus Java python JavaScript what we are simply saying is these are the steps you have to follow and that's your algorithm right but

yes when you want to make it work you have to convert that into a code which was run on the computer right that's your actual software code and you can use any language as a matter right but the pseudo code will remain same now when it comes to processing of data for any task it's important for us to make it fast and also save memory now most of the companies are focusing on this concept of data structures is because they want to give a good experience to the user of course right if I'm using some

application I want it to be fast now you will say okay to make the system faster you can increase the CPU speed you can increase the amount of ram you can do that but what if with the same amount of memory same amount of CPU power you can still make it more faster right and that can be done with the help of data structures now if you know how do you store that data efficiently in a proper structure and by doing that you can make your application faster because in data structures we have different type

of data structures example let's say if you have bunch of data you can store that in an array but apart from Adder we have other types as well we have set we have linked list so when to use what it's not that this is best or that is best it's it's all about when to use what and to understand when to use what you have to first understand what those things are right how do you decide that this time you have to use added this time you have to use set and that's where understanding these

concepts are very important now these are not the only options we have we have tree we have graph when to use them so when you understand those Concepts then we can think about okay for this situation we will use this and this is why companies are preferring candidates who knows DSA it will help them in multiple ways first it helps them to reduce the cost is because every computation see uh I know you may be thinking most of the applications which we use are free right think about Instagram now when we use Instagram of course

we are not paying for it but then companies are paying for it right so the meta is paying for for you to use Instagram so because those computations will be happening somewhere maybe meta is using some cloud service let's say Amazon is in this case So Meta is basically paying to Amazon for every computation which you do okay of course they earn from ads but then they are paying for it so what they will do is they will try to optimize it they will say okay if one query takes let's say one dollar or maybe

half a dollar can we just reduce it more can we just make it 10 cents so that's the thing they are trying to do and the way you can do that is by making sure you use a proper algorithm with a proper data structure so why companies are doing it to reduce the cost second to give a better customer experience so that it will run faster and if I search something it should be faster for me as well so as a customer next when companies want to hire people they have so many candidates right how

will they filter those candidates now data structures algorithm becomes one of the way to filter the candidates because if you know data structures that means you have worked a lot on the particular language and you understand how how a particular system works on the other hand data structures are not the only thing you need to know if you want to be a good developer if you want to get hired there are multiple things needed example you need to have a good hold on a particular language a particular technology you should have worked on few projects

understanding the entire ecosystem not just one language working with databases working with networking but then DSA becomes one of the important thing there so just to summarize what are data structures so data structures is basically a way to organize and store your data in the efficient way and there are multiple data structures options available there and you will understand that in the upcoming sessions we're going to talk about in the upcoming videos you will we will talk about what are the types of data structures we have how to use them when to use what and

what algorithms available there so I hope you got some idea regarding data structures so of course entire series is important to understand that properly so I hope you're excited see you in the next video