Practical Algorithms for Programmers [Paperback]

Andrew Binstock (Author), John Rex (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 020163208X | ISBN-13: 978-0201632088 | Publication Date: June 29, 1995 | Edition: 1

Most algorithm books today are either academic textbooks or rehashes of the same tired set of algorithms. Practical Algorithms for Programmers is the first book to give complete code implementations of all algorithms useful to developers in their daily work. This book focuses on practical, immediately usable code with extensive discussion of portability and implementation-specific details. The authors present the useful but rarely discussed algorithms for phonetic searches, date and time routines (to the year AD 1), B-trees and indexed files, data compression, arbitrary precision arithmetic, checksums and data validation, as well as the most comprehensive coverage available of search routines, sort algorithms, and data structures. Practical Algorithms for Programmers requires only a working knowledge of C and no math beyond basic algebra. The source code is ANSI-compliant and has been tested and run on compilers from Borland, Microsoft, Watcom, and UNIX. 020163208XB04062001

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Most algorithm books today are either academic textbooks or rehashes of the same tired set of algorithms. Practical Algorithms for Programmers is the first book to give complete code implementations of all algorithms useful to developers in their daily work.

This book focuses on practical, immediately usable code with extensive discussion of portability and implementation-specific details. The authors present the useful but rarely discussed algorithms for phonetic searches, date and time routines (to the year AD 1), B-trees and indexed files, data compression, arbitrary precision arithmetic, checksums and data validation, as well as the most comprehensive coverage available of search routines, sort algorithms, and data structures.

Practical Algorithms for Programmers requires only a working knowledge of C and no math beyond basic algebra. The source code is ANSI-compliant and has been tested and run on compilers from Borland, Microsoft, Watcom, and UNIX.

020163208XB04062001

About the Author

Andrew Binstock is editor-in-chief of UNIX Review and founding editor of the C Gazette. He was the lead author of HP LaserJet Programming (Addison-Wesley, 1991).

John Rex is a computer consultant specializing in C and C++. He is the former technical editor of the C Gazette and has written articles for numerous magazines.

020163208XAB04062001

Product Details

• Paperback: 592 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1 edition (June 29, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 020163208X
• ISBN-13: 978-0201632088
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,278,545 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great! But there is a bug on source code. Watch out !, May 17, 2000

By 

J. S. Shin (Seoul, South Korea) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Practical Algorithms for Programmers (Paperback)

Great book! Many practical algorithms are there. :) But also there is a practical bug on source code. For example, Ch 4,boyermor.c, listing 4-3 : Line 73:

memset( CharJump, 0, Alphabetsize * sizeof(unsigned) );

It should be as follows:

memset( CharJump, PatLen, Alphabetsize * sizeof (unsigned) );

This is a minor bug. But it can slow down boyer-moore searching speed. It's hard to be detected by empirical debugging. There is no bug in algorithm explanation. So,do not 100% rely on source code example. Read explanation, then apply example source code to your own source.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Think of this book as CS Cliff's Notes., June 9, 2000

By 

J. D. Mayo (San Jose, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Practical Algorithms for Programmers (Paperback)

The english in this book is very clear (to me), and the explainations are short and to the point. I personally have a very short attention span, so reading many paragraphs of stuffy technical descriptions found in other books is nearly impossible for me to bear. The book goes over linked lists, binary trees, red/black trees, b-trees, hash tables, gregorian&julian date/time conversion, Chksums&CRCs, compression(LZ,huffman,LZW). The book is excellent for anyone having trouble understanding this type of material in a CS course, think of this book as CS Cliff's Notes. The copy I own would be on my desk at all times, except that it gets borrowed so much that I rarely know who in the company has it. My cover is nearly falling off and the corners are all bend up from the large amount of use that this book gets.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting material - lousy quality control, December 8, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Practical Algorithms for Programmers (Paperback)

As someone who is trying to learn how to program on their own, the hardest thing to find is practical examples of how things might be done. Most authors are either too lazy to provide complete code, seem to have a problem with providing it, or are way out of touch with the needs of their audience. This book provides a wealth of very interesting ideas and applied examples. And the examples are complete, they are not just snippets where you have to guess how to fill in the rest of the blanks.

This book has allowed me to step to a new level of understanding; however, the quality of the implementation is appalling. These boys should be smacked for such shoddy editing. As the previous commentor remarked, it is an exercise in debugging. But in a strange way this hasn't been without its benefits. To get the programs to work, I was forced to really understand what the authors were trying to achieve, and as a result gained a better understanding of the programs; it even made think about how I might do things differently.

This is not a book for people who don't want to think who want it to work off the shelf. But from a learning point of view it has been extremely worthwhile to me; I have not seen another book out there with such large and engaging examples.