Monk Logs 0 (DSA): Prelude

Intro

If you don’t use something often, it slowly fades. Concepts blur, patterns become harder to recognize, and things that once felt intuitive start requiring effort again. That’s why I make it a habit to return to the fundamentals every so often, especially when it comes to DSA.

It’s easy to get comfortable building features, shipping code, and solving problems at a high level. But under the surface, everything we build still relies on the same core principles.

Why should you care about learning DSA?

Because you’re already using it, constantly.

Every time you loop through an array, search for a value, sort a list, or manage data in memory, you’re relying on data structures and algorithms. They’re embedded in the languages you use, the frameworks you trust, and even the APIs you call. The difference is whether you understand what’s happening beneath the abstraction.

That understanding matters more than you might think.

What this series is about

This isn’t going to be a textbook or a collection of perfect definitions. This is a log—a record of me revisiting the fundamentals, filling in gaps, and strengthening my understanding over time.

Closing thought

Think of this as going back to the dojo. Not because you forgot everything, but because mastery comes from repetition, refinement, and discipline