Data Structures and Algorithms

Perfect book. Nice and small. You can buy it cheap too, it's old. But it's full of the meat and potatoes, no fluffy Java source code. Sure, it uses Pascal, but it's not that hard to understand Pascal code even if you never programmed in Pascal (me neither). What matters is the discussions behind the scenes. It covers the whole range of what you should know and it's concise. They don't write books like this anymore.

A textbook by Aho/Hopcroft/Ullman is sort of a guarantee of quality - and this one is no exception. These people are among the greatest researchers and teachers in Computer Science, and this book is a great opportunity to 'learn from the masters'. As an introduction to the fascinating field of Data Structures and Algorithms, this is perhaps the best textbook you'll find out there. Starting with the basics, the authors develop the concepts in a natural manner. Array, lists and stacks soon give way to binary trees, heaps and then more advanced data structures. All data structures are introduced with proper motivation in terms of the kind of problems that they are useful in solving. The basic algorithms in searching, sorting, and graphs are then presented in detail, followed by a chapter on algorithm analysis techniques, and one on design paradigms such as dynamic programming, backtracking, divide and conquer, greedy approach, and local search. The book ends with chapters data structures and algorithms for external storage and memory management. This is a textbook, and therefore you can expect a fair amount of maths in the analysis of algorithms, without which you can only do hand-waving. All algorithms are explained, with detailed examples and illustrations - this is one of the easiest books to follow in theoretical computer science. All algorithms are presented in pseudocode, which makes it easier to understand things at an abtract level without getting bogged down in language specific technical details, and the pseudocode is very clear and concise, making it an easy task to adapt it to any given language.An additional plus-point is its size - weighing in at less than 450 pages, this is a 'backpack friendly' book which you can easily carry around, unlike many others on the subject. The only caveat is that the book is almost 20 years old, so you won't find the more recent topics like red-black trees, skip lists etc. I'd suggest using this book for an introduction to the basics, with the book by Cormen et al (if you want the maths) or Sedgewick (if you don't want the maths) as excellent supplements as well as advanced references. I must confess to having a weak spot for this book, since it introduced me to algorithms and i fell in love with the subject. However, i think most people who've read it would agree that it is a classic among Computer Science textbooks which has stood the test of time.

This book stands out among countless books written on the subject. It basically deals with the two ingrediants of programming ,Data Structures and Algorithms.The first part gives a wonderful introduction to the concept of Data Structures.It goes on to deal with several classes of Data Structures such as lists, stacks, queues, trees and graphs.. This book is profusely illustrated with examples, and lots of exercises for the student to expand upon the ideas. The next part goes on to deal with Algorithms. Beginning with the concept, approaches, and different metrics that quantify algorithms such as time and space complexity. Common problems such as sorting , searching and the different algorithms are elaborated with the pros and cons. One nice thing about the text is the way the subject is presented to the reader. Each topic begins with a few basic concepts and then extended in a natural manner to reach the complexity. This especially equips the student with the ability to continue evolving the solutions on their own. Not to mention the numerous exercises.For example by studying the concept of abstract data types one would understand how OO programming evolves naturally. I highly recommend this book for any one seriously interested in programming.

From a students perspective this text has it all. Instead of relying on C/C++ to teach the concept of ADTs, this text uses a pseudocode based on Pascal. Consequently, all algorithms presented in this text are clear and easy to understand. Implementation of ADTs is thus facilitated by using the clear framework provided in this wonderful text.

I was lucky enough to take a course in Data Structures and Algorithms with Prof. Aho and this was the text. Probably the best I have ever used. As friends and associates went through school they would invariably throw away the book they'd bought for their Data Structures course and buy a copy of this. Clear, concise, full of good code. A must