Customer Reviews

Data Structures and Algorithms

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A textbook by Aho/Hopcroft/Ullman is sort of a guarantee of quality -
and this one is no exception. These people are among the greatest
researchers and teachers in Computer Science, and this book is a
great opportunity to 'learn from the masters'.

As an introduction to the fascinating field of Data Structures and
Algorithms, this is perhaps the best textbook you'll find out there.
Starting with the basics, the authors develop the concepts in a
natural manner. Array, lists and stacks soon give way to binary trees,
heaps and then more advanced data structures. All data structures are
introduced with proper motivation in terms of the kind of problems
that they are useful in solving.

The basic algorithms in searching, sorting, and graphs are then presented
in detail, followed by a chapter on algorithm analysis techniques, and
one on design paradigms such as dynamic programming, backtracking, divide
and conquer, greedy approach, and local search. The book ends with chapters
data structures and algorithms for external storage and memory management.

This is a textbook, and therefore you can expect a fair amount of maths
in the analysis of algorithms, without which you can only do hand-waving.
All algorithms are explained, with detailed examples and illustrations -
this is one of the easiest books to follow in theoretical computer science.

All algorithms are presented in pseudocode, which makes it easier to
understand things at an abtract level without getting bogged down in
language specific technical details, and the pseudocode is very clear
and concise, making it an easy task to adapt it to any given language.

An additional plus-point is its size - weighing in at less than 450
pages, this is a 'backpack friendly' book which you can easily carry
around, unlike many others on the subject.

The only caveat is that the book is almost 20 years old, so you won't
find the more recent topics like red-black trees, skip lists etc.
I'd suggest using this book for an introduction to the basics, with the
book by Cormen et al (if you want the maths) or Sedgewick (if you don't
want the maths) as excellent supplements as well as advanced references.

I must confess to having a weak spot for this book, since it introduced
me to algorithms and i fell in love with the subject. However, i think
most people who've read it would agree that it is a classic among Computer
Science textbooks which has stood the test of time.

This book stands out among countless books written on the subject.

It basically deals with the two ingrediants of programming ,
Data Structures and Algorithms.

The first part gives a wonderful introduction to the concept of Data Structures.It goes on to deal with several classes of Data Structures such as lists, stacks, queues, trees and graphs..
This book is profusely illustrated with examples, and lots of exercises for the student to expand upon the ideas.

The next part goes on to deal with Algorithms. Beginning with the concept, approaches, and different metrics that quantify algorithms such as time and space complexity. Common problems such as sorting , searching and the different algorithms are elaborated with the pros and cons.

One nice thing about the text is the way the subject is presented to the reader. Each topic begins with a few basic concepts and then extended in a natural manner to reach the complexity. This especially equips the student with the ability to continue evolving the solutions on their own. Not to mention the numerous exercises.
For example by studying the concept of abstract data types one would understand how OO programming evolves naturally.

I highly recommend this book for any one seriously interested in programming.

From a students perspective this text has it all. Instead of relying on C/C++ to teach the concept of ADTs, this text uses a pseudocode based on Pascal. Consequently, all algorithms presented in this text are clear and easy to understand. Implementation of ADTs is thus facilitated by using the clear framework provided in this wonderful text.

I was lucky enough to take a course in Data Structures and Algorithms with Prof. Aho and this was the text. Probably the best I have ever used. As friends and associates went through school they would invariably throw away the book they'd bought for their Data Structures course and buy a copy of this. Clear, concise, full of good code. A must

Perfect book. Nice and small. You can buy it cheap too, it's old. But it's full of the meat and potatoes, no fluffy Java source code. Sure, it uses Pascal, but it's not that hard to understand Pascal code even if you never programmed in Pascal (me neither). What matters is the discussions behind the scenes. It covers the whole range of what you should know and it's concise. They don't write books like this anymore.

I believe two books make a classic collection in data structures - one was the data structures book by sartaj sahni (his first edition book many years ago - I haven't looked at his recent books). That was the book I had to study when I was an undergrad student. Now I was entrusted with the task of teaching Data Structures and after looking at several books, this is the one I chose (may be because it comes most close to the style of teaching using psuedo-pascal that I grew up with).

I believe psuedo languages are the best way to learn concepts of any computer science area without getting bogged down in the nitty gritty of a language's syntax and semantics. I found the problems at the end of the chapters to be thoughtful and not extremely hard for undergraduate students. This book also goes into brief mathematical aspects of analysing the complexity of algorithms where necessary. The mathematical analysis is usually the part that most undergrad students moan and groan about, but they better get used to it IMO, if they wish to elevate themselves from the ranks of "a programmer" to an software / algorithm designer.

I have to agree that this book can be extremely hard for the weaker students in the class who have never had any programming or basic college algebra exposure. For all others, this book should be great.

This book explains very clearly the subjects of data structures and algorithms. Its in-depth coverage is very intuitive and easy to follow unlike other literature that is often tedious or esoteric.
The only complaint I have is the choice of the programming language. Pascal is a language of the past. A new edition using C will make this book simply a gem.

I remember using this text in University. I still have it on my shelf and still refer to it. Even with all this STL and such I find this a great reference. I was looking around the web for a more recent book on algorithms, but I've always decided to keep this one. I think the only issue is if a new edition will ever be made to cover OOP implementations.

This book is very good but if you are looking for information on AVL trees and other advanced concepts in Data Structures look at Donanld Knuth. This book is not for beginners and is a very dense book.

It is just an okay book, not extraordinary in any way. Especially, this is certainly not for the novice in this topic, i.e., it is certainly not a good introductory book. So if you are new to data structures and algorithms, stay away from this book, go for some good introductory book.

For the advanced readers, it is an okay book. Better books are available, e.g., books by Cormen et al. and Robert Sedgewick.

The book is written in a way not very intersting or engaging. The algorithms are not explained in detail. Often things are left unexplained or assumed that the reader already knows it. Algorithms are presented in pseudocode, which causes problems especially for the readers familiar to some particular programming language.