Customer Reviews

Algorithms

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I am a professor who has used book for the last three years for my Algorithms class. I have reviewed many books on the design and analysis of algorithms. It is surprising to me that, on the subject of something as fundamental to computer science as algorithms, that there are so few really good texts--fortunately this is one of them. On the plus side, it has just the right amount of mathematical rigor and is very comprehensive. Of special note the the excellent chapters on Coping with NP completeness and Text Searching. It does have some issues, however. As a previous reviewer pointed out, it is very expensive. In addition, many of the chapter exercises are extremely difficult and there should be selected answers to these in back of the book. This is definitely a graduate text--would not recommend for undergrads. For Professors, I found the instructor materials for this book to be on the thin side, with many gaps in coverage. It could also use a chapter on evolutionary algorithms. Hopefully this will be corrected in a subsequent edition.

This is actually a pretty decent book, and does a reasonably good job of introducing algorithm analysis and design. I suspect it is not terribly popular because it is very expensive, and does not offer any distinct material that one would otherwise not find in the dozens of other books available on this subject. Nonetheless, I found it enjoyable.