The challenges of problems from international programming competitions are an effective way to improve your algorithmic and coding skills and understanding. This volume uses international programming competition-type problems to motivate the study of algorithms, programming, and other topics in computer science. The book includes more than 100 programming challenges, as well as the theory and key concepts necessary for approaching them. Problems are organized by topic, and supplemented by complete tutorial material. Readers gain a concrete understanding of both algorithmic techniques and advanced coding topics. Unique Features: * Offers a wealth of rich programming problems suitable for self-study -- all with on-line judging at www.programming-challenges.com * Presents practice training for all major programming contests -- ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ACM ICPC), International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), and Topcoder Challenge * Serves as a convenient, web-based means of adding a programming component to any algorithms or software engineering course * Contains complete working code for fundamental data structures and graph, string, numerical and geometric algorithms * Provides a brief-yet-thorough treatment of key elements in number theory, geometry, dynamic programming, and graph algorithms * Supports all popular programming languages (C, C++, Pascal, Java) Steven S. Skiena is a member of the faculty of computer science at SUNY Stony Brook and is author of many widely used books, including The Algorithm Design Manual. He received the 2001 IEEE Computer Society Undergraduate Teaching Award. Miguel Revilla is a member of the faculty of computer science at the University of Valladolid, Spain. He is official website archivist of the ACM ICPC and creator/maintainer of the primary robot-judge, contest-hosting website.
Programming Challenges
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more
 |
| |||||||||||||||
Shop the Amazon.com Textbooks Store and save up to 70% on textbook rentals, 90% on used textbooks and 60% on eTextbooks. |
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Editorial Reviews
Review
"Skiena and Revilla's new book 'Programming Challenges: The Programming Contest Training Manual' is just the ticket for those interested in a jumpstart to the world of contest programming. With special emphasis on the international ACM collegiate contests, the book's best feature is each chapter's pithy introduction that demystifies a particular scheme or algorithmic approach. The ensemble of these explications coupled with the contest strategy guidelines in the appendix can enable a novice to enhance contest results dramatically in a short time simply by solving the suggested exercises in each chapter. Even contest veterans are likely to be able to find a nugget or two in the explanations and strategies. "Presented in a logical order (contest programming has over a dozen different primary attacks), the book guides readers not only through the techniques and algorithms required but also through a huge set of problems that can be used for training. Solutions can be submitted to Valladolid University's online trainer for quick feedback and reinforcement. "If you're the sort who likes to have a single volume that covers the vast majority of a field, you'll love Skiena and Revilla's new tome." --Rob Kolstad, Ph.D., Head Coach, USA Computing Olympiad
About the Author
Steven S. Skiena is a member of the faculty of computer science at SUNY Stony Brook and is author of many widely used books, including The Algorithm Design Manual. He received the 2001 IEEE Computer Society Undergraduate Teaching Award.
Miguel Revilla is a member of the faculty of computer science at the University of Valladolid, Spain. He is official website archivist of the ACM ICPC and creator/maintainer of the primary robot-judge, contest-hosting website.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images? |
More About the Authors
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
By far, the hardest part of teaching programming classes is evaluating the programs. Unless you have the students do only simplistic programs, they are difficult to read and running the executables does not always give an accurate appraisal of what was done. One possible solution to this educational conundrum is to take advantage of the robot judge maintained at the book's companion web site.
The book contains many problems to be solved via a program that must accept inputs having a specific, albeit general format and then produce the appropriate output. The robot judge is capable of evaluating programs written in Pascal, C, C++ and Java and it will return one of eleven different results, all of which are two letter acronyms. If the program is not given a passing grade, then the message will not be of much benefit.
The problems are placed in several categories, including sorting, combinatorics, number theory, graph traversal, grid operations and geometry. I identified several that I can and most likely will use as assignments the next time I teach basic programming. While some problems require significant background information, in general it is not so great that it is beyond the bounds of what can be done in a basic computing class. The problems were originally created to prepare students for programming contests, so the level of difficulty is such that they could not be used until later in a beginning course. However, the book would be an excellent text for any advanced programming class where the students are split into teams. Each chapter begins with primer material for the problems given in that chapter and I included it in my best books of the year 2003 column for the online "Journal of Object Technology".
The book contains many problems to be solved via a program that must accept inputs having a specific, albeit general format and then produce the appropriate output. The robot judge is capable of evaluating programs written in Pascal, C, C++ and Java and it will return one of eleven different results, all of which are two letter acronyms. If the program is not given a passing grade, then the message will not be of much benefit.
The problems are placed in several categories, including sorting, combinatorics, number theory, graph traversal, grid operations and geometry. I identified several that I can and most likely will use as assignments the next time I teach basic programming. While some problems require significant background information, in general it is not so great that it is beyond the bounds of what can be done in a basic computing class. The problems were originally created to prepare students for programming contests, so the level of difficulty is such that they could not be used until later in a beginning course. However, the book would be an excellent text for any advanced programming class where the students are split into teams. Each chapter begins with primer material for the problems given in that chapter and I included it in my best books of the year 2003 column for the online "Journal of Object Technology".
14 of 16 people found the following review helpful
By Jason Cordes
Format:Paperback
I teach computer science at the high school level. Many of my students are hired for professional software development before they even graduate. One of the areas my students tell me they wish they could do better is contest coding. I've been doing quite a lot of research in that area, and I've read and digested several very good algorithms books (Data Structures and Algorithms in Java by Peter Drake is among the best I've read so far). Unfortunately, I have yet to find a book that adequately explains how to generate rapid solutions to contest problems. A skill that is interestingly useful in the professional environment in the role of prototyping.
WHAT I THINK ABOUT THIS BOOK:
The book falls very short of what it promises. It does contain a few selected programming problems (several of which I encountered when I competed in the ACM contests myself!), but it merely gives hints on things to think about and nothing about how to select appropriate solution algorithms. Also example code is only given for the simplest of situations. I would have preferred examples of more complex scenarios with a discussion of how to scale it back for simpler situations. Also, the book purports to be language neutral, and in their defense, although all the code is in C, there are discussions of how to use libraries from other languages. The only real use I got out of it was how to categorize problems into subsets and what those subsets look like. Essentially, the book is written to an audience who likely doesn't need the book in the first place...which is a shame.
If you are a master programmer and you just need some "nudges" in the right direction, this will be an excellent book for you.
If you are a novice, this book is all levels of wrong for you...consider getting a good data structures book (that includes graph algorithms...many of them don't!).
If you are an average to good programmer, just go to one of the contest sites and practice problems. It might also be useful to download the FREE guide to the ACM International Contests at acmsolver dot org. Also, the problems presented in this book are mostly covered in the collection of problems published as "From Baylor to Baylor".
WHAT I THINK ABOUT THIS BOOK:
The book falls very short of what it promises. It does contain a few selected programming problems (several of which I encountered when I competed in the ACM contests myself!), but it merely gives hints on things to think about and nothing about how to select appropriate solution algorithms. Also example code is only given for the simplest of situations. I would have preferred examples of more complex scenarios with a discussion of how to scale it back for simpler situations. Also, the book purports to be language neutral, and in their defense, although all the code is in C, there are discussions of how to use libraries from other languages. The only real use I got out of it was how to categorize problems into subsets and what those subsets look like. Essentially, the book is written to an audience who likely doesn't need the book in the first place...which is a shame.
If you are a master programmer and you just need some "nudges" in the right direction, this will be an excellent book for you.
If you are a novice, this book is all levels of wrong for you...consider getting a good data structures book (that includes graph algorithms...many of them don't!).
If you are an average to good programmer, just go to one of the contest sites and practice problems. It might also be useful to download the FREE guide to the ACM International Contests at acmsolver dot org. Also, the problems presented in this book are mostly covered in the collection of problems published as "From Baylor to Baylor".
23 of 29 people found the following review helpful
By David Bock
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
First, let me get the caveats out of the way:
1) 'Contest' code like this does not teach nor encourage many of the concepts desirable for large system development. The point is not to have code that is extensible, maintainable, well designed, etc... although there are some good points (see below).
2) This book does not try to 'teach' concepts. That is not the point either (see below).
While the book is not 'teaching', it does set a bunch of interesting playing fields in which people can explore, discover, and learn on their own. In this regard, this book is excellent. I am considering using it to lead a study group at work for this reason.
While it is not promoting the development of many of the desirable skills I think develops generally need more of, it is promoting the use of requirements, detailed design, and acceptance tests... this is how the projects are specified and graded.
Yes, I said graded. This is a really cool feature of the book - there is a website where your solutions can be submitted, and a 'robot' will run and test them, letting you know the results. The way they pull that off is pretty cool. You create an account, and it ranks how well you are doing.
If you are interesting in contest coding, if you are looking for some platform on which to lead a study group on algorithms/problem solving, or if you are the kind of person who picks up Games Magazine looking for little problems to solve, this book is for you.
1) 'Contest' code like this does not teach nor encourage many of the concepts desirable for large system development. The point is not to have code that is extensible, maintainable, well designed, etc... although there are some good points (see below).
2) This book does not try to 'teach' concepts. That is not the point either (see below).
While the book is not 'teaching', it does set a bunch of interesting playing fields in which people can explore, discover, and learn on their own. In this regard, this book is excellent. I am considering using it to lead a study group at work for this reason.
While it is not promoting the development of many of the desirable skills I think develops generally need more of, it is promoting the use of requirements, detailed design, and acceptance tests... this is how the projects are specified and graded.
Yes, I said graded. This is a really cool feature of the book - there is a website where your solutions can be submitted, and a 'robot' will run and test them, letting you know the results. The way they pull that off is pretty cool. You create an account, and it ranks how well you are doing.
If you are interesting in contest coding, if you are looking for some platform on which to lead a study group on algorithms/problem solving, or if you are the kind of person who picks up Games Magazine looking for little problems to solve, this book is for you.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
This is a horrible book. Failed all my expectations.
This is book is basically a collection of a few well know algorithms, with most of its pages printed with online judge problems (without analysis nor solutions). Read more
Published 9 months ago by a computer science major student
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book!
Hi. My name's Paulo Giovani and I'm a professor here in Brazil. I teach C/C++ programming and databases. Also, I work with some students that like to take a part in contests. Read more
Published on March 30, 2011 by Paulo
3.0 out of 5 stars
You must work to gain from this book.
This book does not hand-hold. Each chapter gives a summary introduction of some CS topic (data structures, computational geometry, for example), and then includes 5 - 10 relevant... Read more
Published on January 5, 2011 by Yoraf Shiraz
4.0 out of 5 stars
Problems are good, but requires a little more in terms of solutions
The book as such is a very good collection of algorithm problems. If you are going for an interview which you expect to be algorithm intense, solving problems from this book can be... Read more
Published on September 17, 2009 by Sudarshan Ray
1.0 out of 5 stars
not the good at all if you start in competitions
This books is simply weak. There are informal and formal books and sources you can start play in these contests. Read more
Published on May 17, 2008 by B. Etin
5.0 out of 5 stars
Recreational and good for modern job interviews
The problems are fun and I see more and more and more of these kinds of programming problems on job interviews these days so it's good to be quick at doing them. Read more
Published on April 5, 2008 by Reed Kotler
1.0 out of 5 stars
disaster
the only attractive aspect of this book is its website where you can submit your solutions in order to check them. However their website keeps giving errors. Read more
Published on May 5, 2007 by os
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not useful
If you are looking for a book that will :
(1) Teach you how to solve typical problems appearing in the programming contests
(2) Give you tips to write correct code,... Read more
(1) Teach you how to solve typical problems appearing in the programming contests
(2) Give you tips to write correct code,... Read more
Published on January 5, 2007 by Sidhant
4.0 out of 5 stars
nice collection
Very nice collection of programming challenges and very well presented.
Lots of effort has been done to set up the automated program "judge" (basically an automatic test... Read more
Lots of effort has been done to set up the automated program "judge" (basically an automatic test... Read more
Published on August 18, 2006 by Gabriel Zachmann
5.0 out of 5 stars
Recommended to practical people
I must say that I bought this book together with "The Algorithm Design Manual" and I'm very satisfied. Read more
Published on February 9, 2006 by Marius Herghelegiu
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 40
books:
See all 40 books this book cites
6
books
cite this book:
See all 6 books citing this book
- The Algorithm Design Manual by Steve S. Skiena in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- The Practice of Programming (Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series) by Brian W. Kernighan in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram on page 188, and Back Matter
- Specification of Software Systems (Texts in Computer Science) by V.S. Alagar in Front Matter
- Cryptography : Theory and Practice by Douglas R. Stinson in Back Matter
See all 40 books this book cites
- Computer Safety, Reliability, and Security: 23rd International Conference, SAFECOMP 2004, Potsdam, Germany, September 21-24,2004, Proceedings (Lecture Notes in Computer Science) by Maritta Heisel on page 71
- Theory of Computation (Texts in Computer Science) by Dexter C. Kozen in Back Matter
- Computational Discrete Mathematics: Combinatorics and Graph Theory with Mathematica ® by Sriram Pemmaraju in Front Matter
- Dependable Computing - EDCC 2005: 5th European Dependable Computing Conference, Budapest, Hungary, April 20-22, 2005, Proceedings (Lecture Notes in ... / Programming and Software Engineering) by Mario Dal Cin on page 206
- Computer Safety, Reliability, and Security : 24th International Conference, SAFECOMP 2005, Fredrikstad, Norway, September 28-30, 2005, Proceedings (Lecture Notes in Computer Science) by Rune Winther on page 164
See all 6 books citing this book
Books on Related Topics
(learn more)
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Listmania!
So You'd Like to...
Look for Similar Items by Category
- Books > Computers & Technology > Games & Strategy Guides
- Books > Computers & Technology > Hardware > Microprocessors & System Design > Computer Design
- Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Algorithms
- Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Software Design, Testing & Engineering > Logic
- Books > Computers & Technology > Software
- Books > Education & Reference
- Books > New, Used & Rental Textbooks > Computer Science
- Books > Science & Math > Mathematics
