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Title: Introduction to Algorithms (MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science)
ISBN: 0262031418
Author:
Thomas H. Cormen
Charles E. Leiserson
Ronald L. Rivest
Publicate Date: 1990-06-18
Publish: 1990-06-18
List Price: $69.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Hardcover
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $9.98
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $4.92
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| Customer Review: |
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1: The leading reference on algorithms
This text is widely considered the leading reference on algorithms in the field of computer science. It was the text that was used in my algorithms course when I was an undergrad computer science student at Wisconsin, and it was one of the only books I held on to because its contents are timeless. The text covers a wide breadth and depth of topics related to the design and implementation of complex algorithms. I found this book very useful for both theoretical projects I did in complexity theory as well as for practical applications in string algorithms, geometric problems, and data structures applied to computational biology.
I see complaints in other reviews about a lack of real code examples. I liked this since it's my preference to think about these concepts at a much more abstract level -- no more detailed than pseudo code.
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2: good condition
this book was kept up...no pages missing
was a great deal for me, it beats buyin the book for full price
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3: Faily good timely delivery
I received the book in a fairly good amount of time. I will just note that this book did not come with it's companion CD. I expected it to have it's companion cd. There was not mention as to whether or not the book had it's companion cd.
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4: The best textbook on algorithms, but it is not a programming book.
I used this book for a graduate level Algorithms course, and I really liked it. It is packed full of content on a wide range of topics. While this book does provide some high-level implementations of algorithms in pseudo-code, you will not find any examples of how to program algorithms in this book. That's really not what this book is meant for anyways.
I found the reading to be easier than Knuth on similar topics, but you still need to have sufficient mathematical background in order to keep up (statistics, discrete math, some calculus). Also, unlike many technical books I've read recently, I did not find any mistakes, not even a typo.
Some people are not aware that the MIT Open Courseware website has some excellent free video course lectures that use this book. I highly recommend at least viewing the first three or four of those lectures if you are new to this topic because they compliment this book very well. Make sure you understand the first four chapters of this book before moving on to other topics.
Also, since it had been a while since I had the math as an undergraduate, I was relieved to learn that this book had several appendices that provided a review of the math topics required by the book.
The only negative about the book is that it does not provide answers to any of the exercises at the end of the chapters, so you really need to use this book in conjunction with a course in order to be able to check your progress and how well you are learning the information. If you're not using this book with a course, check the MIT Open Courseware website that I mentioned previously. It has some sample assignments you can use.
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5: This version has NO CD
There are three versions of the second edition, only one of which has the CD:
The first one is published by the MIT Press, with the title "Introduction to Algorithms". This one has no CD. This is the one Amazon currently carries, so if you buy from Amazon, you get no CD.
The second one is published by McGraw-Hill, also with the title "Introduction to Algorithms". This one also has no CD.
The third one is published by McGraw-Hill too, but has the title "Introduction to Algorithms and Java CD-ROM". This is the one with the CD. It's much more expensive than the other two.
The CD in the third version contains implementations of the algorithms in Java.
To find someone that carries the CD version, search for this ISBN-13 number: 9780072970548 , or for "Introduction to Algorithms and Java CD-ROM" .
Note: Some listings that come up for the ISBN number will not be the correct version. Look carefully for "and Java CD-ROM" before buying.
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