Fri, 30 Jan 2009
Algorithms
G.T. Heineman, G. Pollice, S. Selkow, Algorithms in a Nutshell, O'Reilly
Most of O'Reilly's Nutshell series is hardcore and meant as references for
people doing actual work rather than being for a little geeky reading. This book
is no exception and we think you'd be quickly lost if you didn't have the
basics of algorithms already under your belt. They recommend Knuth's volumes for
just this task.
Still and all, there are sections that could actually serve as a heavyweight
introduction in that, right at the start, you're made aware of all sorts of
potential issues, whether it be in sorting time, facility of the algorithm, or
the eternal memory leak problem (why not use something other than C then? some
discussion of other languages might have been helpful.).
The book is meant to be a desktop reference and could be quite good for that
purpose but some sort of familiarty with the order of the book would be needed
first, but we guess they didn't say "Quick Desktop Reference".
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pre Dec 04 reviews are here