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Programming Challenges: The Programming Contest Training Manual (Texts in Computer Science) Paperback – October 10, 2008

by Steven S Skiena (Author), Miguel A. Revilla (Author)

23 customer reviews

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There are many distinct pleasures associated with computer programming. Craftsm- ship has its quiet rewards, the satisfaction that comes from building a useful object and making it work. Excitement arrives with the ?ash of insight that cracks a previously intractable problem. The spiritual quest for elegance can turn the hacker into an artist. Therearepleasuresinparsimony,insqueezingthelastdropofperformanceoutofclever algorithms and tight coding. Thegames,puzzles,andchallengesofproblemsfrominternationalprogrammingc- petitionsareagreatwaytoexperiencethesepleasureswhileimprovingyouralgorithmic and coding skills. This book contains over 100 problems that have appeared in previous programming contests, along with discussions of the theory and ideas necessary to - tack them. Instant online grading for all of these problems is available from two WWW robot judging sites. Combining this book with a judge gives an exciting new way to challenge and improve your programming skills. This book can be used for self-study, for teaching innovative courses in algorithms and programming, and in training for international competition. To the Reader Theproblemsinthisbookhavebeenselectedfromover1,000programmingproblemsat the Universidad de Valladolid online judge, available athttp://online-judge.uva.es.The judgehasruledonwelloveronemillionsubmissionsfrom27,000registeredusersaround the world to date. We have taken only the best of the best, the most fun, exciting, and interesting problems available.

Programming Challenges: The Programming Contest Training Manual (Texts in Computer Science)

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"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.

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Product Details

Series: Texts in Computer Science
Paperback: 364 pages
Publisher: Springer; 2003 edition (October 10, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0387001638
ISBN-13: 978-0387001630
Product Dimensions: 7 x 0.9 x 9.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #419,371 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #58 in Books > Computers & Technology > Hardware & DIY > Microprocessors & System Design > Computer Design
- #61 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Software Design, Testing & Engineering > Logic
- #221 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Algorithms

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Top Customer Reviews

As a teacher, this book fails me.

ByJason Cordeson March 15, 2011

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".

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Excellent book - several caveats

ByDavid Bockon September 18, 2004

Format: PaperbackVerified 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.

0Comment 24 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

You must work to gain from this book.

ByYoraf Shirazon January 5, 2011

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

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 Olympiad problems. You must actually write the problems and try the test inputs on them, to benefit from the book.

The book does not provide problem solutions. It would have been advantageous to see master algorithmists' (Skiena & Revilla) approaches to an Olympiad problem. Tips on algorithmic efficiency for every problem would have been helpful, for those who are interested in training for the competition, as well as for those who want to be better programmers. Alas, you may continue to write programs in an inefficient manner without feedback.

0Comment 4 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Good programming training manual but needs improvement

ByWilliam Chauon June 6, 2003

Format: Paperback

In general, this is a good training manual on programming competitions. ... But the authors of this book tried to cover many topics without much depth. The topics should be treated more thoroughly, and more examples should be added. I hope the next revision of the book can be improved in these lacking areas.
Half of the books are a collection of problems you can get from the Programming Challenges website ... The lecture notes (in HTML and PDF formats), and audio (in MP3 formats), which the materials of the book extracted from, can be downloaded from the website.
For Java and C++ coders, some of the data structures and algorithms they provided are already available in classes and methods in the standard and STL libraries, respectively. But it is interesting to see how these data structures and algorithms are being designed and implemented in C from the book.
In my opinion, the code segments and examples chosen for the second half (chapters 8 and up) of the book are pretty good selections. The last two chapters of the book are my favorate chapters since the data structures and algorithms presented there for geometric problems, in particular computational geometric problems, are very subtle making solving some of these problems very simple.
...

0Comment 5 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

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Great reference, but could be improved

I do think that this book is showing its age a bit (see below), but it is still a good introduction to this world.Read more

Published 2 months ago by Thomas Ehardt

it was not always so easy to think of ways to utilize the different techniques ...

This book takes me back. When I began programming, it was coding up math formulas. After that, it was not always so easy to think of ways to utilize the different techniques that...Read more

Published 1 year ago by AfterMath

Good for nitty-gritty

Out of nowhere, this became my favorite algorithms book. There's no proofs of correctness or proofs of runtime, only minimal exposition, hyper-minimal C implementations and...Read more

Published on January 12, 2014 by Nicholas Charles Ralabate

A outdated book with some interesting discussions in it.

I read the first edition of this book about ten years ago. At that time, there is no so many resources on the Internet for people who participate programming contest, and this...Read more

Published on August 19, 2013 by David Bryant

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 on July 29, 2012 by a computer science major student

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

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...Read more

Published on September 17, 2009 by Sudarshan Ray

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

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

Mostly Helpfull

This book provides programming challenges from UVa in a topical manner which is a nice way to study certain topics, it provides some helpfull hints on the challenges.Read more

Published on September 10, 2005 by Jason L. Cosby

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