Algorithm book recommendation?

From: AlgoMan (algoman_at_mailinator.com)
Date: 02/05/05 

Date: 4 Feb 2005 23:20:33 -0800

Hi,

    I have been trying my hand at programming for a year as an amateur.

However, I have no formal education in computer science or mathematics.
Hence, now I am learning algorithms & data structures from some
textbooks.

     People recommend "Introduction to Algorithms" by Thomas Cormen etc
& Sedgewicks algorithm books. Unfortunately, IMHO, these books are not
easy to
understand for someone who doesn't have a formal Math/CompScience
backgroup.
I think you need to know a lot of mathematics, mathematical notations
etc for
understanding Cormen. As far as Sedgewick is concerned, his coding is
rather
complicated to understand for a beginner, he applies a twist to even
simple
algorithms which make them slightly difficult to understand.

  For eg. most other books, explain the Towers of Hanoi solution with
this function prototype.

  hanoi(N, Source, Dest, Aux)

Sedgewick has
  hanoi(int N, int d)

Had to read it many times to understand what he is doing here, whereas
the
Source, Dest thingy is very intuitive to understand for a beginner.
Sedgwick tries to make all his programs very small, elegant & compact,
which
make them a little difficult to understand for a beginner. Other than
that,
Sedgewick goes deep into different analysis, which are very difficult
to
understand.

  I came across the book "Programming Pearls" by Jon Bentley. This
books explains algorithms in a very very beautiful & elegant manner for
a beginner.
Things which I have found very very complex in other books, I
understood in
1st reading with Bentley. Unfortunately, his books do not cover
algorithms
& data structures exhaustively, but are just a collection of papers,
some of
which concentrate on algorithms.

  Are there are any books on Data Structures & Algorithms which cover
this
subject in the same manner that Bentley does in his papers?

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Algorithm book recommendation?
    ... Unfortunately, IMHO, these books are not ... As far as Sedgewick is concerned, ... > algorithms which make them slightly difficult to understand. ... Dest thingy is very intuitive to understand for a beginner. ...
    (comp.programming)
  • Re: Questions on Using Python to Teach Data Structures and Algorithms
    ... use Python? ... good) books that used Pascal for this topic. ... "Data Structures and Algorithms with Object Oriented Design Patterns" ...
    (comp.lang.python)
  • Scientific books: cheap sell-out of the library
    ... Scientific books: ... Algorithms and Data Structures, Artificial Intelligence, Avionics, ... Here are sample book list in Artificial Intelligence: ... Chapman & Holl - Colour Image Processing Handboook, ...
    (sci.cognitive)
  • Re: What to learn?
    ... the Sedgewick books are best replaced with something else -- I like ... For the pragmatist who wants to implement the algorithms, ... Knowing patterns without algorithms ...
    (comp.lang.cpp)
  • Re: what should be in a computer science degree?
    ... Games programming ... scientists be taught something about data structures and algorithms? ... I thought about the Data Structures and Algorithms idea. ... Take a look at some of the algorithms in books ...
    (comp.lang.lisp)