MODULE 11 · INTERMEDIATE

Stacks, Queues, Monotonic Structures & Arithmetic Evaluator ProjectJava & Data Structures · Module 11

Master LIFO and FIFO primitives: ArrayDeque efficiency, Monotonic Stacks (Next Greater Element), Monotonic Queues, and engineer an arithmetic expression evaluator project.

4 lessons16 min readingAsymptotic Complexity, Linear Data Structures & Search1 project
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WHAT THIS MODULE COVERS

Stacks, Queues, Monotonic Structures & Arithmetic Evaluator Project

Master LIFO and FIFO primitives: ArrayDeque efficiency, Monotonic Stacks (Next Greater Element), Monotonic Queues, and engineer an arithmetic expression evaluator project.

BEFORE YOU START

Linear data structures and FIFO/LIFO semantics

WHAT YOU’LL BE ABLE TO DO

Expertise in monotonic stacks and deques for next greater element and sliding window extremes in amortized O(n).

THE LESSON SEQUENCE

Read in order, or jump to what you need.

Every lesson builds on the one before it. Open any lesson to read the explanation, run the examples, and try the practice challenges.

  1. 11.01
    Stack & Queue Internals: ArrayDeque vs Legacy Stack & Circular Buffers

    Examine stack and queue architectures. Learn why java.util.Stack is deprecated in favor of ArrayDeque, and implement a high-performance circular ring buffer.

    4 min
  2. 11.02
    Monotonic Structures: Next Greater Element & Sliding Window Maximum

    Master monotonic data structures. Learn how Monotonic Stacks solve Next Greater Element in O(N) time and Monotonic Queues find Sliding Window Maximums.

    4 min
  3. 11.03
    Double-Ended Queues and Monotonic Deque Invariants: Sliding Window Maximum

    Harness monotonic double-ended queues (Deques) to solve continuous sliding window maximum and minimum problems in amortized O(n) linear time.

    4 min
  4. 11.04
    Guided Project 3: Arithmetic Expression Evaluator & Shunting-Yard EngineProject

    Build an industrial-grade mathematical expression evaluator. Implement Dijkstra's Shunting-Yard algorithm to parse infix tokens into Reverse Polish Notation (RPN) and evaluate ASTs.

    4 min
MODULE SELF-CHECK

Ready to move on?

Deliver Project 3: Arithmetic Expression Evaluator & Syntax Tree Parser.

Open the module self-check