Customer Reviews

Algorithmics for Hard Problems

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Algorithmics for Hard Problems addresses an important (if somewhat small) group of technical people who work exclusively on intractable problems. It takes a great deal of creativity and a large set of intellectual tools to make even modest progress on these problems. Prof. Hromkovic's book presents and organizes a big package of ideas and tools for approaching these problems. Even the last section, entitled "A Guide to Solving Hard Problems" addresses some of the practical issues of working on problems for which a completely satisfactory answer may be out of reach.

This book is especially helpful for software professionals solving difficult problems because it helps one to categorize and understand where the "pain points" can be found. In many software applications very hard problems are hidden within perfectly reasonable appearing and seemingly benign systems -- it's critical in these cases to correctly project the details of the problem onto a well defined set of basis tasks.

This book's presentation is difficult if not impossible to understand. The algorithmics are simply lost amid highly dense, nearly incomprehensible symbolism that obscures rather than illuminates ideas. As a result, the book requires tremendous effort to move from page to page. It will therefore be of limited or no use to practicing software professionals. Although the price is right, I cannot recommend this book.