<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: A great book and a great deal
Review: As a computer science graduate student I carried Papadimitriou and Steiglitz with me almost every day. Its target subject is combinatorial optimization, but going through this book, you might think that graph theory and computational complexity are just subfields of combinatorial optimization. It builds a beautiful theory that brings these and other fields together, and with a fraction of the page count of, say, Cormen, Rivest Leiserson. Now that it's a Dover book, it's a fraction of the price I paid, and I was gladly willing to pay that.
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece on Combinatorial Optimisation
Review: Christos Papadimitriou, my hero is a hope for all of us who wish to master the fascinating field of Combinatorial Optimisation. Especially recommended are the chapters on matching, NP Completeness and Approximation Algorithms.As another reader has remarked, this book is quite old though (published first in 1982). For a more to date book on Combinatorial Optimisation, one might want to look at Cook, Cunningham, Pulleyblank and Schrijver's book on Combinatorial Optimisation (published in 1998).
Rating:
Summary: Excellent.
Review: Every programmer should have read this book. It is complete, detailed and makes a great reference for the engineer's bookshelf. It goes beyong the enumeration of cookie-cutter algorithms , by providing enough theory, to let you create solutions to your own optimization problems.
Rating:
Summary: It is the Globally Optimal Solution!
Review: I can't say more than what already been said by other reviewers. To recap, F = {all excellent combinatorial optimization books}
cost(this_book) <= cost(y) for all y in F. ;)
Rating:
Summary: It is the Globally Optimal Solution!
Review: I can't say more than what already been said by other reviewers. To recap, F = {all excellent combinatorial optimization books}
cost(this_book) <= cost(y) for all y in F. ;)
Rating:
Summary: Inexpensive, excellently written, and quite interesting!
Review: I had this book on my shelf for two years before taking a serious look at it, and only wish I had read it much earlier in life. Christos Papadimitriou has written quite a gem! On one hand this book serves as a good introduction to combinatorial optimization algorithms, in that it provides a flawless introduction to the simplex algorithm, linear and integer programming, and search techniques such as Branch-and-Bound and dynamic programming. On another, it serves as a good reference for many graph-theoretic algorithms. But most importantly Papadimitriou and Steiglitz seem to be on a quest to understand why some problems, such as Minimum Path or Matching, have efficient solutions, while others, such as Traveling Salesman, do not. And in doing so they end up providing the reader with a big picture behind algorithms and complexity, and the connection between optimization problems and complexity. After reading this and Papadimitriou's "Introduction to Computational Complexity" (which I also highly recommend), I now consider him one of the best at conveying complex ideas in a way that rarely confuses the reader. I also had the priviledge of attending one of his talks on complexity, and he seems just as effusive and transparent as a lecturer as he does a writer. Ah, for once I bought a Dover book that did not disappoint.
Rating:
Summary: It worths exponentially much more than its price
Review: One could buy this book for different reasons: interests in combinatorial optimization, of course; interests in what Papadimitriou has to say, since his thoughts on this subject are definitely invaluable; perhaps the price is a good reason alone.
Whatever the reason, however, I think that would be a rare event to remain duped. I was preparing my exam in Computability and Complexity when I first used it. I've been wonderfully surprised by the amount of definitions, algorithms, concepts I've found in this book. I think one could use this book for a simple course on Algorithms, on Computability and/or Complexity, on the whole Combinatorial Optimization, and the book would be always and costantly useful. The chapters on algorithms and complexity, or those on NP completeness have proved to be gems. The chapters on Approximation and Local Search are great, and they feature a bunch of detailed and excellent quality stuff (e.g. there is a detailed treatment of Christofides' algorithm to approximate the TSP, that is quite an idiosyncratic topic). All in all, a very great book, with a value exponentially greater than the very insignificant price.
Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece
Review: This book is a classic. Besides, it's a bargain. I read it more than 10 years ago as an undergrad and, even then, could grasp all the concepts. So, it's really accessible.
Rating: 
Summary: A classic
Review: This is just a note to mention that athough Amazon has dated this book as published in 1998, it is actually around 15 years old. By the way, it's a good book, but I didn't find it an easy read, especially the first half. One needs to already have a foundation in linear programming and optimization to digest it. A previous reviewer who said that every programmer should read it was being unduly exuberant, presumably because it happened to hit his particular spot. Most programmers don't need combinatorial optimization and for those who do there are some good alternative books.
Rating:
Summary: A classic
Review: This is just a note to mention that athough Amazon has dated this book as published in 1998, it is actually around 15 years old. By the way, it's a good book, but I didn't find it an easy read, especially the first half. One needs to already have a foundation in linear programming and optimization to digest it. A previous reviewer who said that every programmer should read it was being unduly exuberant, presumably because it happened to hit his particular spot. Most programmers don't need combinatorial optimization and for those who do there are some good alternative books.
<< 1 >>
| 
