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Summary: What you need to know about real-world algorithm design...
Review: Most professional programmers are not well equipt to tackle algorithm design problems. "The Algorithm Design Manual" is designed to provide access to combinatorial algorithms technology for computer professionals and students. This book is considerably different than other books on algorithm design. Why? (1) We reduce the design process to a sequence of questions to ask about the problem at hand. This provides a concrete path to take the non-expert from an initial problem statement to a reasonable solution. (2) To provide a better perspective on how algorithm problems arise in the real world, we include a collection of `war stories', tales from our experience on real problems. The moral of these stories is that algorithm design and analysis is not just theory, but an important tool to be pulled out and used as needed. (3) Since the practical person is usually looking for a program more than an algorithm, we provide pointers to solid implementations whenever they are available. With these implementations available, the critical aspect in algorithm design becomes properly modeling your application, instead of becoming intimate with the details of the actual algorithm. This focus permeates the entire book. (4) Since finding out what is known about an algorithmic problem can be a difficult task, we provide a catalog of the 75 most important algorithmic problems as a major component of this book. By browsing through this catalog, the reader can quickly identify what their problem called, what is known about it, and how they should proceed to solve it. To aid in problem identification, we include a pair of `before' and `after' pictures for each problem, showing the required input and output specifications. (5) The algorithm catalog spans numerical problems and data structures as well as graph, string, and geometric algorithms. For each problem in the catalog, we provide an honest and convincing motivation showing how it arises in applications. If we could not find such an application, then the problem doesn't appear in this book. cations. Equally important is what we do not do in this book. We do not stress the mathematical analysis of algorithms, leaving most of the analysis as informal arguments. You will not find a single theorem anywhere in this book. But what is a manual without software? This book comes with a substantial electronic supplement, a ISO-9660 compatible, multiplatform CD-ROM, which can be viewed using Netscape, Microsoft Explorer, or any other WWW browser. This CD-ROM contains: (1) A complete hypertext version of the full printed book. Indeed, the extensive cross-references within the text are best followed using the hypertext version. (2) The source code and URLs for all cited implementations, mirroring the Algorithm Repository WWW site. Programs in C, C++, Fortran, and Pascal are included, providing an average of four different implementation (3) Over thirty hours of audio lectures on the design and analysis of algorithms are provided, all keyed to on-line lecture notes. Following these lectures provides another approach to learning algorithm design techniques. Listening to all the audio is analogous to taking a one-semester college course on algorithms!
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Summary: You will love it!
Review: Apart from beeing really useful, this book has two more interesting characteristics: 1. it is very readable 2. it is very amusing/interesting at times. The book is very good if you are a beginner in the subject of computer algorithms, but note that it is not a stand-alone book. You also need a good algorithms textbook to cover the subject of algorithms. Skiena reviews some aspects of the algorithmic theory he regards especially useful/important and presents his interesting perspective, but some times he uses algorithms or techniques he has not presented. What makes this book great is the "War stories", where the author describes real problems and the process that led to the algorithm that solved the problems. Something like Bentley's magnificent book "Programming pearls" (get this one too!). And, of course, the categorized catalog of algorithmic problems, which comprises the bigest part of the book, is almost a guarantee that once you come across a real problem you will shortly know where to look for a solution. Moreover, that solution may already be coded, waiting for you in the CD that comes with the book (which also includes a one-semester lectures of the author in shockwave-audio format).
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Summary: Review from co-developer of the CD-ROM and website
Review: As an unbiased reviewer :^) I feel that this is the most useful algorithms text written for the real-world algorist. The CD-ROM contains a wealth of information (including the entire repository of implementations found on the affiliated website, and hours of audio lectures from the author's own algorithms course). The catalog of algorithms is also invaluable.
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Summary: good book
Review: Awesome book! Apart from the good collection of algorithms, it also teaches you where/how you can apply these algorithms in "daily life" with a section on 'war stories'. The use of simple lanaguage and great presentation makes the algorithms easy to understand. Amazing reference for both academia/professionals.
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Summary: Best Book Of ALgorithm
Review: Este libro es senciallamente expectacular y creo que es la biblia de la algoritmia moderna.
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Summary: Amazing Book But Very Theoretical
Review: I hate to give this book only 3 stars, since it is obviously so well done. But it is not a book for everyone. If you are at the advanced level, you will treasure this one.
But if you want to learn practical algorithms at a more basic level, I recommend:
Algorithms in C++, Parts 1-4: Fundamentals,
Data Structure, Sorting, Searching (3rd Edition)
by Robert Sedgewick or Data Structures & Algorithms in Java (Mitchell Waite Signature Series)
by Mitchell Waite, Robert Lafore or Data Abstraction and Problem Solving With
Java: Walls and Mirrors
by Frank M. Carrano, Janet L. Prichard
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Summary: Very useful
Review: I have bought this book for "on the job" use and it is coming in very handy. We had a confusing problem concerning a matrix and the solution was here with examples. This sort of thing really impresses me about a book because it is paying for itself.
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Summary: The Algorithm Design Manual
Review: I haven't got time to read the whole book, but I read the chapter on dynamic programming. The writing on dynamic programming is clear and is the best I ever read.
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Summary: I like this book
Review: I like this book. It covers a field of fundamentals of computer algorithms. The book explains basic programming mathods, such as dynamic programmind, devide and conquer, backtracking etc. The book also covers some new fields that are not covered in, for example, Cormens Introduction to Algorithms, such as randomization, genetic algorithms etc. At the end of the book you can find very interesting catalog of algorithmic problems. I highly reccomend this book. It is modern and very nice written.
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Summary: Great theory book
Review: If you want all the theory (without most of the heavy math) this is the place to go. If you're looking to implement something and you're looking for some direction, DO NOT look here - you'll get buried in the details of academia instead of the real world. That in and of itself, would get this book 4 stars. The bigger problem ... way too many of the links were dead, wrong, or sent you on a wild goose chase.
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