Binary search trees content request

Hi Austin,

Thanks for sharing this idea with us! We love hearing from our Community.

Best,

Daniela
Community Support

Austin, I'm glad you're interested in learning more about software engineering than is available here, it shows an inquisitive mind, which is great for engineering/inventing! :-)

Binary search trees are typically covered in an entire course on Stacks, Queues and ADTs - abstract data types.  Although you can make some of these using simple arrays and/or simple prototyped objects in JavaScript, it would be best to do in a different, object-oriented, language.  I'm not sure if Khan Academy would have to get a license to use one on their site?

Some options I might recommend that could be free/cheap for a non-profit like KA would be: Smalltalk, Java (of course), or even Python.  Some advantages of each: Smalltalk is used in the original Design Patterns book by Gamma, Helm, Johnson and Vlissides, so it would be a natural lead-in for students who wanted to continue after ADTs into object-oriented design patterns.  Java is closely related to JavaScript, of course, so the language would be a natural lead-in from what is already on KA in its excellent interactive format!  Python is a very high-level language, which means it's closer to what humans actually understand and speak, therefore, much easier to learn for English-speaking people to learn.

-Gavin, BSc

UW-L Computer Science 2010

Thanks Daniela, and thank you Gaven for the added suggestions and commentary! Do you think Swift would be a viable option for an organization like KA, since it's open source and has OOP as one of its paradigms?

Hi Gavin, 

Wow! That was an amazing answer to Austin's request. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us! 

And Austin, I'm glad to help! 

All the best, 

Daniela
Community Support