Customer Reviews

Data Structures and Program Design In C (2nd Edition)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

I just finished an online course on data structures at UMass, Lowell (secured an A grade without any problem) and this is the textbook used for this course. I agree with some of the comments made by the reviewers here - that typedef's are used beyond reason, code is presented in fragments. I must strongly disagree with the reviewers who said - the book is not worth the money (it's cheap if you buy a used one), it is a bad book, useful only as a paper weight. The strong plus point for this book is that it presents theory well - there are many figures using which it is easy to understand complicated stuff. The other plus point is that it also analyzes the performance of algorithms and I felt the book does a great job of explaining this part in clear terms. The main drawback is that the code is fragmented and spread out, which is certainly frustating. Also, in order to get the code to work on a compiler (I used Microsoft VC++ version 6), you will need to "fill in the gaps" as most code examples (I tried 90% of the examples in the text on MVC++ compiler) are by no means complete but this was not difficult. You can download the code from the publisher's website and the code is actually not organized into different files (sorted by chapter and example) but it comes in a few files where examples from different chapters are mixed. You will have to search and find the part you need. I do agree usage of dummy functions creates confusion. This book has a rocky start with the life game example, which was not very easy to follow with the explanation provided. While I was frustated with the first two chapters, the rest of the chapters are presented well. To the reviewer who said that the code has bugs (which certainly isn't true), my guess that the gaps are not properly filled. I patiently tested most of the code on the computer (after filling in the gaps of course!) and find absolutely no problems with it. This however took lot of time since significant effort is needed from the student to fill the missing code to make it work. I have supplied working code to my fellow students who were facing difficulties in getting the code to run. In a couple of places in the text, the author surprised me with C syntax I did not know was legal (I consider myself intermediate programmer).

I suspect the reason why many readers have problems with this book is two-fold: 1.The code is not available in a format that can be tested on the compiler. Having read a lot of CS books which supply with readily usable code, this book gets annoying. I was wondering why the authors did not give downloadable working code for all examples in the text (which is a definite minus point) 2. The reader will have to go back and forth between the chapters as some functions developed in former chapters are used in later chapters. This does get irritating. I have read books that do this to a ridiculous level but this book stays with in tolerable bounds.

I will not rate this book as the best one on the subject out there but it is definitely good enough to learn data structures. I have used another book as a supplement: Data Structures & Algorithms in Java (Mitchell Waite Signature Series) (Hardcover) By Mitchell Waite, Robert Lafore ISBN: 1571690956. This book has lot of applets that show step by step how algorithms work. I am a visual learner and this helped tremendously. However, I felt that Waite Series book did not present the theory as thoroughly as Robert Kruse's text.

In summary, I consider this book as "decent". I was very much concerned when I first purchased this text because of so many bad reviews. As it turns out, those that can understand C and are willing to sit in front of the computer to make the code samples in this book work need not have any fear. As I said earlier, the theory is presented well, and all it needs is patience and diligence from the student to go through the code examples on a compiler. I believe that I now have a good understanding of the subject and I can move on books that deal with it at more depth. There are a plethora books on this topic out there and there may be better books than the ones mentioned in this review.

There is a number of books in Algorithm design which concentrate blindly on the run time complexity of algorithms, when covering them. This book is quite an exception to that tradition. In contrast, this book explain the algorithms itself. If you are interested to know about more detail and personalized characteristics of an algorithm, besides its running time complexity, such as space complexity, data movement complexity, performance on non asymptotic (smaller) case, etc. this is the book to read. Although, the book appears less technical at the first sight, I have compared it with Corman's. It contains almost all the analysis for the algorithms it presents. In fact Cormen's book lacks any analysis on space complexity. You will be disappointed in this book (like few other readers) if you are looking for a compendium of abstract complexity analysis of a large set of algorithms or just the discussion on data structure, pointer etc. It lacks advanced algorithms. Also, its graph theory chapter needs more depth. Without any reservation, I can say it is one of the best book available for first course in algorithm analysis and design.

The previous Pascal edition of this book was extremely readable and what I learned data structures from. It had a lot of diagrams which were invaluable to understanding the algorithm. This book improves upon that edition by adding even more illustrative pictures and is updated with new algorithms and analysis techniques like amortized analysis which were not around when the old book was written. The writing style of the author is impeccably understandable. I collect books on algorithms and data structures and this is the most readable book ever.

P.S. I've found the books which use STL to be opaque and focus more on STL and C++ than on understanding the data structure and algorithm. This is why many authors, including Sedgewick, eschew STL in their books. STL is also not relevant when programming in other languages, like the ubiquitous C programming language.

because of my limited english, i never write any review before. however, as i found this book,i feel that i must comment it for other's benefit. this book is the worst i ever studied. it's very confusing. after reading it, it only taught me to hate c programming.

I expected so much more from a book that rode the high praises of my univeristy's computer science department. The author presents the data structures themselves in a great manner but when it comes to code, you would be better suited facedesking your keyboard. We had 3 programming assignments based on code in certain sections. 1. They were all wrapped in this bad templating that just didnt work out at all. 2. Every single program he gave us to use segfaults. His logic is so broken he outta be ashamed of writing this book. so when it came to the programming assignments to modify the author's code to work for something else, the class was screwed and we all failed cuz we couldnt even get the normal code to run, which as an author of a textbook is his sole responsibility: To make sure everything is accurate and works; he failed this hard. Therefore i strongly urge anyone who has to use this book to not use this book for any kind of coding and to beg your professor to use a different book, its only use is for when it gets cold and u and ur classmates wanna have a good old fashion book burning.

I'm taking a DS class and this book is required. I wouldn't use it otherwise. The author, as others have said before, jumps around so much that it is really hard to follow sometimes, especially if you don't have days to spend figuring out what is assumed by the author.

Interestingly, I found a copy of a much older data structures book by the same author. It's for the C language, but is almost identical. The difference is classes for the implementation, but most everything else is the same.

I get the idea, after looking at other DS books for C++, that this one is just a port from C to C++ without much extra thought involved.

I'm having to use another book from the school library to learn from, and following the design for the structures in this book for my assignments. It is really frustrating!

Good luck if you have to use it.

This is a great book! I don't know why other reviewers are so aggravated with it, but I find it to be one of the clearest and ideally arranged books on data structures that are out there. It is also useful to mention that the great illustrations relaxed my eyes and worked a great deal on strengthening the point, making sure I understood the concept behind the algorithm.

I greatly regret forcing this text on my students. This course is the first exposure to such difficult concepts as recursion, double pointers, and ADT's; and to present this material with a text so poorly organized has been a travesty. The material may be accurate, but piecing it together into a cohesive whole has required more work on my part than if I had used no text at all. To make matters worse, the code supplied is buggy and documented poorly or not at all. DO NOT USE THIS TEXT!

If you're an intermediate C++ programmer, then this book presents data structues in a very clear way with some of the very best graphics I've ever seen in a textbook. Each chapter concludes with very good exercises, and a thoroughly described advanced reading lists (excellent feature). Probably not detailed enough for an advanced student, but I really enjoyed studying with this book. Thank you very much to the authors!

Being a CS student, this was a text in a required class at school. TSIA (title says it all). The programming examples are riddled with errors, new topics are brief and cryptic. Stay as far away from this book as you can.