Customer Reviews

Data Structures and Their Algorithms

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

 

 

One of the best ways to discover the strengths and weaknesses of a textbook is to teach a course using it. A few years ago I taught a senior-level course on Data Structures using this book. The book was a joy to teach from, and I would happily use it again -- I thought it was one of the nicest textbooks I've ever used.

(In case you haven't figured it out from the above paragraph, I believe that Paul Schreiber's review of this book is far too negative.)

I never really appreciated this book until many years after graduating from college. I had this in my library just sitting around. The data structures course I took in school was completely uninspiring. However, when it came to researching and implementing appropriate data structures for my own software, I didn't realize how comprehensive this book is. It covers more algorithms and in greater detail than the ever popular Cormen book. The pascal-like examples are very thorough. There are times when code is not provided, but it gives you enough detail to extrapolate from what is already there to get started.

I seriously like this book. It's explaining is close to crystal clear to me when I read it, and the algorithms listed (in pseudo-code) take it to a practical level.

This is one of the 2 texts we've had for our data structures course. I'm not sure what the other book is, because this one was so good. It covered the material in a clear and precise way. I even have a copy of this book today, for further reference!

In this book, Lewis and Denenberg attempt to explain data structures and associated algorithms. They rely too heavily on obscure proofs, have few, if any worked-out examples and many ambiguously worded questions. Their assesrrtion that a "high school" math background is needed is clearly false. The book also suffers from poor typesetting.