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Algorithms in Java, Third Edition (Parts 1-4)
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Author: Robert Sedgewick, Michael Schidlowsky
List Price: $54.99
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 0201361205
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co (23 July, 2002)
Edition: Paperback
Sales Rank: 152,904
Average Customer Rating: 5 out of 5
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Customer ReviewsRating: 5 out of 5
Ideal for the serious developer
In my work, I have a bunch of interlinked objects. I can use tables to display these, but showing linkages is awkward. It is far more natural to graph them. This lets me use evolution, for the human eye and brain are excellent at processing images and discerning patterns in them. But I also want to algorithmically find groupings and invariant properties of the graphs. There is a danger here. In graph theory, it is very easy to inadvertantly pose a simple question that is computationally hard to solve (NP-hard). Conversely, I don't want to reinvent the wheel. From graph theory, there may well be properties of my graph that I can easily extract. Certainly, the amount of research on graphs is voluminous. But how does one take advantage of that? Consulting research journals in maths for papers on graph theory is really feasible only for the career mathematician. But for me, graphs are just a tool; not an ends per se. So I need a book that has the right amount of complexity. It needs to get enough into the subject, beyond the trivial exposition of definitions. Yet it should not bury me in lemmas and theorems. I found such a book! This one. A well deserved third iteration. The explanations are extremely clear. Before I encountered this text, I used Donald Knuth's "Art of Computer Programming" (which is also put out by Addison-Wesley) and his treatment of graphs. But Sedgewick's discourse is far more extensive and, to me, just as well written. A bonus is the extensive problem sets at the ends of each chapter. Even if I have no inclination to do them, the results they give are a valuable extension of the text, by providing an extra summary of the research. I only wish that Sedgewick would provide answers, like Knuth. But this is a just a quibble. This edition has example code in Java. Certainly nothing wrong with that. [I program in Java.] But really the code should be a secondary consideration to you. If you are a programmer and you can understand the text, then you should be of a calibre that you can write the code.
Rating: 5 out of 5
This book should be mentioned in the pledge of allegiance
This book is undeniably worth 5 times the price they list here! Buy now, before these [retailers] realize they have the price wrong!But seriously, this book is the reason I got started in computer science to begin with. Before I read the chapter on ternary search tries, my life was a mess. It was a real rat-infested cesspool! But this book helped to set me straight. Michael Schidlowsky is a role model to us all, as both a coder AND as a citizen. Lest we forget the Zeus of the algorithmic Mt. Olympus, Robert "Dr. Bob" Sedgewick! He will forever stand like a pillar, nay, a BEACON of mathematical intuition and prowess. Welcome to the jungle, my friends; it gets worse here every day.
Rating: 5 out of 5
You can bubble sort me any time, Mr Schidlowsky
I don't know if it's just me, or if there are other ladies out there who find something strangely...magnetic...about co-author Michael Schidlowsky. Maybe it's just my lifelong desire to have a strange, unpronounceable Israeli last name talking, but Schidlowsky's code is like sweet nothings in my ears. Is he some sort of Cyrano De Bergerac, just using Sedgewick as a vehicle to win the hearts of thousands of Java femmes? Or is he just a mysterious masked programmer, leaving swooning cyberbabes in his wake? How I long for a mere picture of the author on the back cover so that I can stare into that great big brain of his all day and late into the night. You've certainly programmed your way into this woman's heart- my IP is 66.128.345.35- Call me anytime.
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