The study of data structures and algorithms is critical to the development of the professional programmer. There are many, many books written on data structures and algorithms, but these books are usually written as college textbooks and are written using the programming languages typically taught in college—Java or C++. C# is becoming a very popular language and this book provides the C# programmer with the opportunity to study fundamental data structures and algorithms.

C# exists in a very rich development environment called the .NET Framework. Included in the .NET Framework library is a set of data structure classes (also called collection classes), which range from the Array, ArrayList, and Collection classes to the Stack and Queue classes and to the HashTable and the SortedList classes. The data structures and algorithms student can now see how to use a data structure before learning how to implement it. Previously, an instructor had to discuss the concept of, say, a stack, abstractly until the complete data structure was constructed. Instructors can now show students how to use a stack to perform some computation, such as number base conversions, demonstrating the utility of the data structure immediately. With this background, the student can then go back and learn the fundamentals of the data structure (or algorithm) and even build their own implementation.