Computer Science Distilled: Learn the Art of Solving Computational Problems Paperback – January 17, 2017

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Excellent book for beginners

July 14, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I absolutely enjoyed this book. I would highly recommend it for people new to programming and computer science. I think Wladston has done an outstanding job making the concepts in this book easily digestible. As a newcomer to computer science, not once did I scratch my head or felt overwhelmed by the information in this book. Wladston in my opinion did an outstanding job explaining the concepts through pseudocode and visuals. The satire images also helped with the explanation and keeping it fun. Though I wish there were a view more. This is a great book for getting your feet wet with computer science. I can't wait for a follow up on this book or one that tackles a more specialized area. Great Job!

13 people found this helpful

Great use of examples for important concepts

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Micah Taylor

July 18, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I really like this book. It has a nice soft cover, and I like the use of colorful emojis in the examples. It provides clear and concise introductions to a variety of computer science concepts. I am just getting started on my journey trying to teach myself programming, and this book provides a decent explanation for some entry level concepts that I may have heard of before in passing, but now feel confident enough about to discuss with my friends with actual degrees in CS.

6 people found this helpful

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Great introduction to computer architecture, data structures and algorithms.

November 8, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I enjoyed the information about data structures, algorithms and computer architecture. There are lots of typos in this book, but they won't prevent you from learning some valuable stuff.

5 people found this helpful

A good computer science reference

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Chuck

July 3, 2018

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I am a self-taught python coder, who wanted to learn more about the field without getting bogged down in details for 4 years. So I bought this book to help me get a good overview of major concepts in computer science.

The book does a great job of giving the reader a broad overview of computing concepts ranging from time complexity to databases to memory management.

It’s a great reference for anyone who wants to expand his/her/their horizons beyond their immediate field of expertise.

I found the book easy and fun to read. Also I discovered some concepts that I’d like to explore further.

I’d recommend this book to anyone who has gotten into programming from a non-sc background.

2 people found this helpful

Great primer for necessary CS core concepts

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Arvinda R.

May 18, 2018

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This book is exactly what I was looking for. When learning programming, you're usually taught a lot of tricks and techniques without fully understanding how they originated or are related.

Upon reading this book I immediately recognised certain topics that I've come across before in disjoint ways and without context (things like endianness, probability theory and Big O notation for e.g.). The book does a great job of collecting, organising and explaining these concepts in an easily digestible format. It starts with core concepts, moves on to how these are expressed language constructs and in the hardware, and then concludes with some practical implementations of these concepts in things anyone learning programming would recognise.

I'd highly recommend for anyone who has even a remote interest in learning from first principles and who has a mind for problem-solving and using code creatively vs. simple rote application of programming techniques and frameworks.

2 people found this helpful

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This book is on point

November 23, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

My first impression was, "this thing is tiny" and it is. It's 160 pages about half an inch thick, but once you dive into the material you realize it's very full of information and it takes a while to digest. I'm 3 hours deep and have only read 27 pages. It cuts right down to the point, exactly as the title describes

4 people found this helpful

Nice primer for CS beginners, a good reference to have for more experienced programmers.

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NorCal Dude

December 13, 2017

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Succinct and accessible explanation of basic Computer Science concepts.

4 people found this helpful

Description is misleading. Like others said, not for the novice. I will have to come back to it after a lot more study of the basics.Read more

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Most recent customer reviews

Emily Lance

Disappointed

Published 2 days ago

Jason

It's a good but brief overview of Computer Science

It's a good but brief overview of Computer Science. It however leaves out some important pieces from the sections that I was already familiar with, e.g.Read more

I enjoy this book because it teaches about a way of ...

FlipFlop Tech Teacher

Computer Science is being offered in more and more high schools; however, many of us are not computer science majors. To most, computer science is synonymous with programming.Read more

Nice little book to refresh concepts and learn along the way. I like the colored approach.

Rutul Parikh

Good thing to have

I was able to grasp some things I was struggling with when reading more academic books like Skiena or Sedgewick

Alexey Solovtsov

This reading helped me formalize and internalize concepts that make up fundamentals of so called computer science.Read more

Very shallow explanations. Not recommended if you have never learned CS before. You will be lost by 10th page.

Sylwia

Good computer science overview

David

Good overview of many computer science topics. Not a book about coding, and it shouldn't be a book about coding. It's about computer science.

Concepts are sufficiently basic and well-illustrated. Contents are well organized. Great kickstart for dummies that have no ideas on the field before.

Henry Dinh

Great 101

It’s a decent overview, but they tend to skip past the algebra / explanations of a lot of stuff. I get that it’s meant to be abridged, but, if you give an example walk through...Read more

So far so good

This book is so awesome. I can't even express how much easier it ...

Kanat

This book is so awesome. I can't even express how much easier it is to understand than other CS books. It is just like passing CS50 by reading a single book.