Xref: utzoo comp.edu:2160 comp.software-eng:1325
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!lll-lcc!pyramid!wendyt
From: wendyt@pyrps5 (Wendy Thrash)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Texts on fundamentals of programming/computer science
Message-ID: <65059@pyramid.pyramid.com>
Date: 2 Apr 89 21:04:19 GMT
Sender: daemon@pyramid.pyramid.com
Reply-To: wendyt@pyrps5.pyramid.com (Wendy Thrash)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Pyramid Technology Corp., Mountain View, CA
Lines: 54

There are a couple of places to get ideas about books.  Check out the
bookstore of a nearby university, see what they're using for their courses.
Of course, if someone on the faculty has written a book in the area, the
selection is likely to be biased. :-)  Look also in Computing Reviews,
published by good old ACM.  They frequently do comparative reviews of
textbooks.  The last Data Structures review I remember was in January, 1987.
At that time Kruse, _Data Structures & Program Design_, was the "most liked
by students" while Tremblay & Sorenson, _An Introduction to Data Structures
With Applications_, rated high as a reference.  In the two years since that
review, several low-level data structures books have become available, some
of them in C.  (The two above use Pascal, with some PL/I in T&S.)  The
availability of data structures books at a lower level, BTW, reflects the
desire of authors to cash in on the new recommended curriculum by being
firstest with the mostest in a CS2 book. 

The subject of algorithms books has also been raised in this thread.  I can't
find the CR comparative review of algorithm books, but it's out of date
anyway; some fine boooks have been published recently.  I happen to be taking
an algorithms/algorithmics course this semester (after twenty years of
programming without knowing what I was doing) and, as a compulsive book buyer,
have accumulated the following:
   Aho, Hopcroft,& Ullman, _The Design and Analysis of Computer Algorithms_
   Aho, Hopcroft,& Ullman, _Data Structures and Algorithms_
   Baase, _Computer Algorithms/Introduction to Design and Analysis_, 2nd ed.
   Brassard & Bratley, _Algorithmics/Theory & Practice_
   Horowitz & Sahni, _Fundamentals of Computer Algorithms_
   Knuth, _The Art of Computer Programming_, vols, I-III
   Sedgewick, _Algorithms_
   Tarjan, _Data Structures and Network Algorithms_ (borrowed)
and I'm still looking for a copy of Reingold, Nievergelt, & Deo.

Impressions?  Well, there are cookbooks, math books, and Knuth books.
Sedgewick is a cookbook.  Brassard & Bratley is a math book.  The others
are in between, except for Knuth's books, which are, of course, Knuth books.
I'm rather partial to Brassard & Bratley, but I'm a quondam mathematician
(which is nothing at all like, say, a quantam chemist) so that probably
explains it.  Sedgewick is fine if I really don't want to know what I'm
doing, and as that's often the state I'm in, I'll probably keep it forever.
Speaking as a (very good ;-)) student, I find Baase the best balanced
as a textbook for bright students who want to know algorithmics and not
just algorithms.  I have just heard, though, from sources I'd better not
identify, that there's a "great" new textbook available: Udi Manber's
_Introduction to Algorithmics_.  I haven't seen it myself, but from its
name and from the interests of the person who recommended it, it obviously
concentrates on algorithmic techniques, rather than recipes.

For all you Knuth fans out there, Stanford claims to be appointing him
Professor of the Art of Computer Programming real soon now, so he can go
about producing more books.  Thanks, Stanford!  Knuth's volume III is
absolutely indispensable if you want to know about sorting.  OK, so
his style is a bit dense at times; we're all adults here!  For myself,
if the man wrote twenty more volumes at $100 each, I'd buy them.  There's
no other living author I'd say that about, though I might pay even more
for a new book by James Joyce.