Customer Reviews

Data Structures and Algorithms: Using Python and C++

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

 

 

I recently got a copy of this book hot off the press. Having liked Zelle's Python book for Comp Sci, I had high hopes for this book filling a niche that has surprisingly few offerings: exploring algorithms and data structures using Python.

Python is a great first language for Computer Science. I use Python for a high school Computer Science class that leads into Advanced Placement Computer Science (language: Java). There is no shortage of great core language Python books, but books that cover more advanced topics like this one are much more rare.

This is a large and well-planned book. The first seven chapters (up to page 245) focus on Python and the subjects range from the basics of abstraction to tree traversal algorithms. Chapter eight introduces the C++ language to Python programmers and does a great compare/contrast between the two languages. What I like most here is that you'll end with a stronger understanding of Python when you see the differences. Chapters nine through fifteen then cover the remaining topics by using both C++ and Python code for implementations. I was surprised at the level of understanding you can get from this book primarily because of the choice to continually compare and contrast Python and C++.

As I write this, you can not "look inside the book" and see the table of contents. For reference:

1. Abstraction and Analysis
2. Data Abstraction
3. Container Classes
4. Linked Structures and Iterators
5. Stacks and Queues
6. Recursion
7. Trees
8. C++ Introduction of Python Programmers
9. C++ Classes
10. C++ Dynamic Memory
11. C++ Linked Structures
12. C++ Templates
13. Heaps, Balanced Trees, and Hash Tables
14. Graphs
15. Algorithm Techniques

Don't let the chapter titles fool you into thinking the authors abandon Python after chapter seven. As I stated, they present both languages throughout the remainder of the book.