Introduction to Algorithms, 3rd Edition

I am a math major who has taken a few cs courses from the cs department at my university. Up until reading this book cs has always been a bit of a mystery to me. I have heard a million and one time how cs is based on mathematics but aside from understanding the idea of traversing through arrays as you would the indexes of a sequence, I have never really seen the connection between the two subjects. This book does an amazing job of demonstrating the mathematical basis of cs. From the very beginning when the authors deconstruct the for-loop used in a insert-sort into a variation on mathematical induction the lines between the two subjects are made crystal clear. I would agree that a pretty solid understanding of mathematics is required for this book, and I can see why someone coming from a typical undergraduate education in cs would find it difficult and intimidating to tackle this book. It definitely does not teach you how to program or the basics of object oriented design as it proceeds to teach you about structure and design of algorithms. I can also understand why someone hoping to simply get a job as a "programmer" or "software engineer" would not necessarily be well served by this book. The authors are very upfront on this note though, and specifically warn prospective students that they are not going to teach them how to "code" solutions to common cs problems. What they are going to teach them is the fundamentals of algorithm analysis and design. How valuable prospective students find this approach is going to depend entirely on what exactly they hope to do with their understanding of computer science. If you want to learn how to code and be paid to be a developer (not a bad line of work by any stretch of the imagination) you might want to look else where. For someone coming from a mathematics background though (whether it's an applied field such as statistics or numerical analysis or a pure field like abstract algebra or analysis) this is an excellent introduction to the field of computer science. If you are coming from a math background the analysis and structure of algorithms as presented in this book will instantly click. For me personally I loved the fact that the underlining mathematical basis of cs did not get lost in details of coding or working within certain developmental environments like Eclipse. Again, probably not an ideal choice for someone looking to learn this particular subjects, but definitely a good choice for math majors (or prospective cs grad students).

Was this expensive? Yes. Was it overpriced? No. My algorithms class was hard (what algorithms class isn't), and I'm not always an ideal student. I had a lot of trouble attending lectures and keeping up with the lecture recordings posted online. Still, I managed to get a 90/100 on my first exam. Not bad, right? I mean, even if it's only barely an A, it was still a high grade right? WRONG! It was an amazing grade! Turns out the class average was 45/100, and I had the highest grade in the class. Pretty crazy, right? WRONG! Exam 2 was where things got crazy. Maybe I was getting over confident, or maybe I was just really lazy, but I didn't watch or attend a single lecture between Exam 1 and Exam 2. The class average was a decent 83/108 this time, but my grade was 108/108. A perfect score without watching a single lecture. So what happened? I wasn't kidding about being a non-ideal student. I had a 2.9 GPA in undergrad, so I didn't manage this through sheer brain power. What I *did* do was a single homework assignment from this book before every test. After attending office hours before exam 2, I found out that almost everyone else was finding the answers online and copying them for good homework grades. These homework assignments were hard, taking around 8 hours to complete, and I still missed a lot of them, but it still worked. It is no exaggeration to say that the homework problems in this book got me an A in Analysis of Algorithms.

I enjoy math, but not to a degree that this book requires. With that being said, this is a spectacular book. If you take your time and read everything, you will know the every single "why" behind every algorithm in this book. It breaks them down so well and in such great detail that it's absolutely impossible not to know enough to understand them in the end (you might not understand all the details of explanations, but that's besides the point). It can definitely get very painful, at times, because the math and the theoretical text gets very heavy, but I think it's well worth it. For me, this is definitely not one of those books I can read in a week, like I do with many other computer science books, but the sheer satisfaction of reading just a tiny bit is immense. Well worth every single penny ten times over.

Fantastic - I love the author's tone and clear explanations, hoping between math and theory to plain English and examples. I got it to supplement my professor's original recommendation (for COS 485/585 at the University of Southern Maine), which was Namipour Kumarss's 'Foundations of Algorithms'. It definitely covered more of the class than the text, because we already had alternative sources in addition to 'Foundations'. Get the PDF if possible, because it's faster to search it doesn't follow the same organization of your class. If you can, get the solution manual as well - it's worth working out the problems in addition to your other homework. To anyone studying algorithms, good luck! Don't forget there are also great video resources as well.

Algorithms is the type of subject that can make you put your hand on your head in frustration due to the technical nature of the subject. This book does a terrific job of demystifying topics and giving you a clear and concise notion of the fundamentals which make the algorithm work. In turn, the authors have gotten me to love learning about algorithms. Every chapter is a new challenge, and the authors are there to help guide you the whole way. Cormen's Algorithms book is highly regarded as one of the best algorithms book out there, and though I have no experience with any other algorithms texts, it's fairly obvious to me now why that is true. Cormen's book is mostly well-organized, is easily readable (especially with all the great pictures and examples!), and is best used as a workbook text. Pretty much all of the chapters rely on chapters previous to some degree, and the exercises especially reflect this behavior as many of them require you to you optimization learned in previous chapters to modify current algorithms. Overall, I have very few complaints, and this text has been one of my favorites throughout college. My first complaint is that the text begins by throwing you in to the analysis of insertion sort before defining any notation or mathematics used to analyze the algorithm. While I understand that the idea is to introduce you to what algorithm analysis really is, the chapter felt more confusing than helpful. I would much rather the book started with background information first. Secondly, the mathematical chapters are very brief and vague. Chapters 4 and 5 are particularly bad due to the lack of depth, explanation, and clarity. The examples are far from satisfactory, particularly those regarding probability and recurrences. While these chapters had excellent problem sets, I needed an external source to help me deal with cases not covered in the text. One example of a topic I had trouble with was solving for the number of levels a recurrence tree has. The book only presents trivial examples of this while the problem sets ask for significantly more work. One or two worked out examples, even if they were only included in the selected answers, would have been very helpful. The last issue that I had with the book was the lack of explanation given in the analysis of specific algorithms. For example, the runtime analysis of Kruskal's minimum spanning tree algorithm felt far from intuitive. The author does not take enough time to explain where some analysis techniques came from and why they were used. Though many of the algorithms are discussed in enough detail, there are several more advanced algorithms which feel like they were thrown into the text without enough care. Despite all these issues I've been very pleased with my purchase and the time I've invested in it. I would recommend the book to anyone with interest in algorithms. While some knowledge of basic mathematical analysis and probability theory would be helpful, it's pretty easy to get by without either of these. Though the explanation of some of the more technical parts of the book is lacking, the authors do a great job of translating complicated psuedo-code and notational necessities into something which is very easy to understand

I could not rave more about this textbook. I read it over the course of about 9 months and would literally read a proof and look around in amazement at how much sense it made. I learned so much from this book and most importantly, I learned it *well*. There are tons of other algorithm textbooks out there but don't let the other ones fool you; this is the omnibus and the leader. I've read others (Skiena, Algorithms in a Nutshell) and although they are for different audiences, I'd still recommend CLRS in every case. Don't be fooled by the Intro in the title. It is pretty math heavy and works a lot with proofs. Most of them are explained well but sometimes they need to be read a few times because they are just more difficult material. Either way, get this book if you want to learn algorithms. I'd eat a rock if you read it and it didn't help you significantly in understanding algorithms.

"An Introduction to Algorithms", a big book, is worthwhile the time. But, I must admit to being 1/4 through iTunes U MIT course "6-046J: Introduction to Algorithms". The textbook feedback is seriously helpful, but I could not manage without the lectures. For what it is worth, my life's course has been the trash-heap quality programming must immediately face, and I've started the course to try to put into some perspective what my efforts have meant over the years, if now largely obsolete. The number of relevant insights have been affirming- I've played in a busy patch and many of the topics covered (to date) have indeed been of real interest ... if only I had known a bit more at the time about what was in fact a lot of blundering around. And, there are some gems. My 1968 Graduate Diploma included some list management, for which which "move to front- MTF" can only be described as spookily revealing of what was going on all those years ago. Modern methods are scary. Such a simple process being within 50% of the efficiency (25% as described in the applicable lecture with reference to the optimising original paper) of what God could manage is humblingly inspiring. Buy the book if you intend to devote a slab of life to getting better acquainted with modern applied logic, but remember the lectures.

As a CS student using this book as a textbook for an algorithms class, this book is fantastic. It is beyond a shadow of a doubt the best textbook I have ever used. It is so good that when I am confused by an explanation from the professor, I resolve it by reading the book. The opposite is usually the case in other classes. In fact I simply have stopped attending class because the book has all of the material I need. In addition, I have no doubt that this will be a reference throughout my future career as a software developer. This will definitely earn a spot on my office bookshelf. Simply put, if someone were to tell me that this is the canonical algorithms book, I would be like: yes.

(italiano sotto) BE CAREFUL who you buy from. The book itself is totally amazing, among the most well written in the field. Considered by the majority of IT specialist as the "bible", it's pretty obvious how much of a resource it represents from the first page you read. I absolutely recommend this to be one of your first purchases if you're keen in IT as its outstanding and straightforward exposition has the ability of making complex subjects definitely easier. A part from the book, the experience with omegabooks was far less heavenly. The book arrived in medium to good conditions and well packed (see pictures), but I was charged with import duties for 28,5€. Seller never showed any will to help and I had to reach out to amazon AZ warranty center in the end. Needless to say they solved the issue and totally refunded me, but this is not a good behaviour for a new seller. He should have advised about the eventuality of import taxes and/or explicitly outline shipment costs so that one could at least calculate import taxes (40+€ shipping, which was included in tax calculation..) and eventually choose a less expensive shipping method. Recap: Book 5 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Amazon CS 5 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Seller (omegabooks) 2 🌟🌟 --------- ATTENZIONE al venditore da cui acquistate. Il libro di per se è assolutamente fantastico, tra i più ben scritti nel campo. Considerato dalla maggior parte degli specialisti IT come la "Bibbia", è abbastanza ovvio quanta risorsa rappresenti dalla prima pagina che si legge. Consiglio vivamente questo come uno dei primi acquisti per chi appassionato di IT in quanto la sua esposizione eccezionale e diretta ha la capacità di rendere semplici argomenti anche molto complessi come le strutture dati più avanzate. A parte il libro, l'esperienza con omegabooks è stata molto meno paradisiaca. Il libro è arrivato in condizioni medio-buone e ben imballato (vedi foto), ma ho pagato dazi all'importazione per 28,5 €. Il venditore non ha mai mostrato alcuna volontà di aiutare e alla fine ho dovuto contattare il centro di garanzia di Amazon A alla Z. Inutile dire che hanno risolto il problema e mi hanno completamente rimborsato, ma questo non è un buon comportamento per un nuovo venditore a mio avviso. Avrebbe dovuto avvisare dell'eventualità di tasse all'importazione e / o delineare esplicitamente i costi di spedizione in modo che si potesse almeno calcolare l'importazione (40€ e passa di spedizione, che viene inclusa nel calcolo dei dazi, fate voi..) così che eventualmente uno potesse scegliere una spedizione più economica con relativi dazi più bassi.

From the beginning it's a clearly written book and does a really good job illustrating problems with detailed graphs and figures. The prior knowledge needed to understand the book is really basic and what it teaches is described in such detail and good order that every doubt is answered before it has the chance to appear. So far I have never felt lost or confused reading this book. Covers multiple approaches for each problem and has a great section of problems at the end of each chapter.

Gostei da qualidade do livro. Ja tinha o pdf porém este livro é daqueles que vc quer na sua biblioteca

Het boek kwam in perfecte conditie, probleemloos en perfect verpakt.

A must-read for software engineers, it covers the fundamentals for a wide variety of algorithms.