Customer Reviews

How to Think About Algorithms

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

 

 

Jeff's book is a life changer. Instead of focusing purely on studying well-know algorithms, he presents the problems, goes over a few ways to solve it (where intuition contradicts reality) and then explain the right solution. He dives into analysis of algorithms and proofs in a very clear and easy way. His students are probably very fortunate!

The way he explains how to approach a problem by defining the right pre/post conditions, loop invariants and where to focus to get it started changed the way I approach CS in general.

Thanks for this great work!

This is a good book if you have already gone through another algorithm and data structure book first. The first chapter starts off by talking about iterative algorithms and how you would go about designing one (step by step), then in an attempt to give examples of iterative algorithms, chapter two covers everything from "plane cutting" to "finite automata" to "graph" problems! This is extremely confusing and unnerving.

Other chapters follow the same pattern. The chapter on recursion starts off really well, but in an attempt to give examples of recursion, it jumps all over the place. To be fair, topics like graphs, trees, greedy/dynamic algorithms are given their own dedicated chapters, but the book never goes into great depths to explain these concepts.

I would say buy a proper algorithm book like "Introduction to Algorithms" or "Algorithm Design Manual" (my personal favorite) and buy this book to look at algorithms from a different perspective.

To give credit where its due, the author does mention that this is not a reference book, but should be treated as a secondary resource to your primary algorithm book and to that end, this book will definitely make a good addition to your library.

Excellent textbook. Very informative. Plenty of material for all sorts of computer science related classes. The mathematical foundations were relevant and readily available. I appreciate the level of rigor he applies to various subjects in the book. It is clearly written, easy to understand, and filled with examples.