The Algorithm Design Manual 2nd Edition, Kindle Edition

I had high hopes for this book given the reviews here. I bought this book brush up on my existing knowledge and learn new things and was very excited to receive it. There are some interesting points and I liked that it has a section on heuristics. It introduced me to the idea of simulated annealing, which I am using for a problem at work now actually, but like most things in the book I had to turn to the internet for a better explanation. The book is a bit wordy and hard to read at times.

The other major gripe I had is with the code examples. Most variables and method parameters are named a, k, c .. etc. For instance here is a method header in the backtracking section: construct_candidates(int a[], int k, int n, int c[], int *ncandidates)

This makes the code very hard to read and follow as well when you are a lines deep in a method trying to figure out what
k[i] - c + a is. It has been my experience that most math/engineer types and professors tend to write code this way vs giving things descriptive names so the code is easily understandable. The book would be 10X more valuable had the code samples been clearer. I ended up sending it back.

Buyer beware! Amazon appears to be selling counterfeit textbooks. I have notified Amazon of this problem and re-purchased and still received what I believe to be counterfeits due to the very poor quality of the color, binding, printing, and horrible misspellings on the back of the book in particular.

The contents of the book is great BTW. However I'd recommend buying direct from publisher.

Not sure why this is listed as "abridged" but the number of pages matches the other listing for the item. It took a fair amount of searching on the ISBN to find someone who disclosed the number of pages.

Personally, I really like Mr. Skiena's writing style and his presentation is clear. It's not as dry as Sedgwick. This has now become my favorite book on algorithms.

This text strikes a perfect balance between too complex and too simple-- with hundreds of practical techniques that give a great overview of nearly every type of algorithm problem we encounter. This is NOT a "theory" text about big Oh (although it has a chapter), efficiency, p vs np and advanced calculus and linear algebra, but does show practical ways to design algorithms and answer questions in that interview.

As an example, older calculators always started "high" when finding quadratic factors or square roots. Skiena (p. 134) shows that three possible "front ends" can make subsequent iteration (trial and error until you're done) faster and more efficient: 1. The older always start high method 2. A common bisection technique-- split the problem, then, by "divide and conquer" go higher or lower and 3. Use interpolation to get closer sooner, then iterate.

The book is set up both as a self study and year long course text, but frankly the presentation is far from academic and much more rubber hits the road practical, realistic, design. The background is given with pseudocode, then the basic level of math needed to get the job done without pages of theory and proofs of Big Oh efficiency, etc.

Since 2008, the next edition in 2010, and this 2012 "printing corrections" edition (not considered a true edition, but contains many detailed corrections), this book has found a great audience in interview prep, because the author takes such a real world approach to solutions. Make sure you get the corrected edition if you buy from an Amazon third party vendor, you will if you get it directly from Amazon.

Highly recommended for all levels of programmers. The index also has been updated, and some of the previous reviews pointing out errors corrected, making this an outstanding reference. As if 700 pages weren't enough, the author also provides 19 sections of practical reviews of online resources and a detailed 43 page very current bib. If you're looking for a difficult to find "vein" of info (say, for example, on CAS algos), you'll find a wealth of info in these sections. Many volumes call themselves cookbooks, this really IS the best of that genre. If you can afford only one algo book, and want to use it without a tutor, teacher or coach, this is the one. Don't take that to mean it's simple-- it's just as deep as the academic texts, but simply removes all the math you don't use every day anyway. It's really more for programmers than researchers, but researchers would still learn a lot about how practical algo writers frame problems.

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I purchased this book (Kindle edition) to brush up on what I learned in Algorithms class over a decade ago. I found it has amazing and detailed information, and if I was teaching an algorithms course this would be THE text book. However, I found at times Skiena's presentation to unnecessarily complicate some of the material. Without a lecture to help clarify I found even myself getting confused. For this reason I can't give it 5 stars and would recommend watching MIT's video lectures on Algorithms first if you are a novice, and that should help enough to smooth over some of this book's rough edges in your mind. Other than that the "War Stories" are great tails of practical real-world algorithm solutions, and I loved the emphasis Skiena uses on proper data-structure selection for various algorithms and the comparison tables. I also liked the quick reference/cook-book chapter to aid in solving encountered problems.

If you've been sentenced with the CLRS book (Introduction to Algorithms), buy this book in addition!! CLRS has very firm technical descriptions, but The Algorithm Design Manual is simply much more enjoyable and provides a lot of the motivation for using some of the algorithms described in CLRS. The book is simply a delight to read.

ALSO: perhaps most importantly, if you are a recent graduate of a computer science program and you are trying to get a job in the field, this is the FIRST book I would recommend to review algorithms and data structures. DO NOT EVEN BOTHER to pick up CLRS (unless specifically directed to do otherwise), as more than likely the questions you will get during the interview will be some variation of the problems that you will encounter in here. I had at least one interview in which all of the problems were derivatives of those mentioned in here; unfortunately I had not yet found this book and so I was rather poorly prepared. When I first picked this up a few months later, I immediately recognized it's value and the fact that this was the only resource I had needed all along.