Pearls of Functional Algorithm Design 1st Edition

by Richard Bird (Author)

11 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0521513388

ISBN-10: 0521513383

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Richard Bird takes a radically new approach to algorithm design, namely, design by calculation. These 30 short chapters each deal with a particular programming problem drawn from sources as diverse as games and puzzles, intriguing combinatorial tasks, and more familiar areas such as data compression and string matching. Each pearl starts with the statement of the problem expressed using the functional programming language Haskell, a powerful yet succinct language for capturing algorithmic ideas clearly and simply. The novel aspect of the book is that each solution is calculated from an initial formulation of the problem in Haskell by appealing to the laws of functional programming. Pearls of Functional Algorithm Design will appeal to the aspiring functional programmer, students and teachers interested in the principles of algorithm design, and anyone seeking to master the techniques of reasoning about programs in an equational style.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Though the writing is crisp, and the explanations lucid, this is not an easy book to read. The difficulty lies in the density of ideas presented. The rewards of persevering are definitely worth it, though. In fact, once immersed, I started to ponder where this material would lead to: which algorithms could be even further generalized, what would many of these algorithms look like if implemented in Coq or Agda, and so forth. This is the effect that all good books have on me: well-presented and well-motivated material strives to become a stepping stone to further discovery. Any serious computer scientist would benefit from reading and properly understanding this book.
Jacques Carette, Computing Reviews

Book Description

Richard Bird takes a radical approach to algorithm design, namely, design by calculation. This unique collection of 30 programming problems draws from various sources including games and puzzles, sorting, and problems in data compression.

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Product details

Hardcover: 290 pages
Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (November 1, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0521513383
ISBN-13: 978-0521513388
Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 0.7 x 9.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 11 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,073,944 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #127 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Functional
- #231 in Books > Textbooks > Computer Science > Algorithms
- #674 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Algorithms

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JWS

A Warning on the Kindle Edition

February 1, 2013

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

While this appears to be an excellent text, the author uses a number of mathematical symbols which are not rendered correctly in the Kindle edition. They are sometimes rendered with a question mark or a rectangular box. This can make the derivations difficult to follow. Since this book is also somewhat expensive for a Kindle edition, if you can afford it, you should probably go for the paper version (assuming the paper version is typeset correctly).

91 people found this helpful

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Rakesh

Was worth calling it the "Pearls"

May 24, 2015

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

I was one of those people who had learned the fundamentals of algorithms from the Programming Pearls (2nd edition) by Bentley. I have to say that since that text, many has written books about programming and algorithms in general and not one had the stuff to call it "pearl". I think this one came close to achieving the similar goal as the original one, but in the domain of functional programming. For those of you who have not read the original pearls, these books are almost like a collection of publication papers, but very well explained and throughly put into a programming environment. Another most important feature of this book (and the original pearls) is that each chapter is about a single problem that has a unique characteristic in algorithms. While most other algorithms books are organized by data structure types, these ones are focused in the category of problems. I have to say that this is the most intuitive form for people interested in algorithms.

Haskell is a perfect choice of language. However, I don't think this book is just for Haskell programmers. Some of most intriguing problems are covered in very good structure. My favorites are the coverage of saddleback search, last tail, raking suffixes and nexuses. All others topics are really well done, but these were the topics that I had hard time googling for a good explanation. Great work.

7 people found this helpful

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kstemen

Focuses more on equational reasoning than algorithms

February 19, 2017

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

The book's title is deceptively simple and too inviting for beginners. A better title would be, "Optimizing algorithms with equational reasoning."

In this book, a "pearl" means starting with a brute force algorithm, then incrementally rewriting it into an efficient algorithm. Incrementally improving an algorithm sounds intriguing. In practice, the book just starts swapping out parts of the algorithm, accompanied by long descriptions of why it does not change the function's specification. Rarely does the book give reasoning about why the change is being made. After reading several of these pearls, my thought process does not jive with this style. I suspect the author actually wrote the final efficient algorithm first, then the brute force algorithm, and finally went back and crafted intermediate steps.

The book has many mistakes in it. Some are simply typos that most readers won't notice. Some mistakes invalidate multiple paragraphs in the proofs. Other times the book simply omits important details. For example, I spent an hour deciphering what the "building a tree with minimum height" algorithm did, but I was not convinced that the algorithm worked. I spent 2 days correcting a part of the proof that was wrong and filling in another important part that the book omitted, before I really believed that the algorithm worked.

A published errata could patch up those problems. However, there is no errata on the publisher's website. Nor can I find any way to contact Richard Bird and ask him to start one.

I've only read the first 8 pearls, but so far the problems those algorithms solve are definitely esoteric. Having worked 11 years as a professional developer, I have never come across any of those problems on the job or even as interview questions.

All that said, reading the book is still improving my functional programming.

3 people found this helpful

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John Wagner

A book for someone who wants to think

November 25, 2010

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Bird has written a fine book, the functional analogue to Bentley's fine pieces. If there is one thing that's common to the functional attitude in program design, it's an emphasis on proof and logical consistency. Bird goes into detail and carefully shows why algorithms perform, and what their costs must be in terms of time and space complexity.
One quibble: the reader, to follow the arguments, will want to write the short code selections for himself, to check Bird's arguments; he'll find himself having to define a number of Unicode mathematical operators, like
U-2209, for example. But this isn't hard to do, in Haskell.
Each chapter is well-written, to the point, and closely argued. In showing the beauty of Haskell in a clear way, or showing the beauty of concrete maths in a clear way, Bird has done well.

34 people found this helpful

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Greg Rivera

Great book that really helps you become a better programmer.

January 3, 2013

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

This book really helped me think about problem solving more efficiently. Functional programming is becoming very powerful and books like this show you why. Thanks to this book, I am now writing shorter and more methodical code. Also great for honing your Haskell skills.

4 people found this helpful

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Dr. Bruce Watson

Required reading for any computing scientist

October 16, 2011

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

I love this book. Just like Jon Bentley's Pearls books, this rather thin book is quite literally a pearl of programming wisdom. Although it's angled to the functional paradigm (Haskell, which is a pleasure as well), it makes for provocative reading given that other languages like C++ and various scripting languages are increasingly including functional programming facilities. This belongs on every computer scientist's (and software engineer's) bookshelf.

11 people found this helpful

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brad

readable and useful

November 11, 2010

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

i'm not entirely finished with the "pearls" yet, but so far its interesting and fun. there is a lot of great follow-on discussion for each pearl. a welcome addition to the growing collection of quality texts dealing with haskell and functional programming.

7 people found this helpful

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DR J HEGEDUS

Great book !

September 7, 2014

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Great book !

One person found this helpful

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Most recent customer reviews

Tom Santero

Five Stars

He's just Bird to me.

Published on November 6, 2014

Peter Harkins

Not actually Haskell

The description and preface claims the code is Haskell. This is a lie.

The code presented is not valid Haskell (the fancy typography is invalid) and uses functions...Read more

Published on October 16, 2014

James Litsios

Good learning but I would have liked more themes to hold it together

Each chapter presents a problem, a simple approach to a solution, and then shows how that simple approach can be brought all the way to implementation, using a functional...Read more

Published on August 19, 2012

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Pearls of Functional Algorithm Design 1st Edition