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>I suppose the target groups of people studying his introductory book is not any random junior student at a random CS department I have never understood this t

>I suppose the target groups of people studying his introductory book is not any random junior student at a random CS department I have never understood this take on CLRS because I was basically this archetype - I went back to school for a MS in CS, at a mediocre state school, after a BS in math during which I never took a single programming class and my first algos class was out of CLRS. So I literally taught myself how to program the summer before by going through the Django tutorial and jumped straight into algos. I wasn't some kind of math genius either (or else I wouldn't have jumped ship after the BS). But there's not a single proof in the back that spans more than a page or two so I cannot fathom what people find difficult about digesting it. And the exercises are basically Leetcode problems, well known to everyone by now. After many years of referring to the book over and over (during prep seasons for interviews) and helping other people through parts of it I think the reality is most CS students just don't understand that there's more to CS than JavaScript and Django and CLRS is a real shock more so than challenge.

shephardjhon 5y ago
I think the problem is CLRS is extremely dry and can easily put you to sleep so people do just enough to pass or get a good grade and forget about it. As a math grad, I think you had the advantage of having a lot more theory. Ideally more algo classes would combine with practical stuff like the youtube channel Coding Train or thr book Nature of Code by Schiffman to make things interesting for people who like to see things happen immediately.
- Mandelmus 5y ago
  > people who like to see things happen immediately Our modern culture and lifestyle cultivates a desire for instant gratification in ways that make rigorous study of math and theory incredibly hard for most people who don't have the guiding structure of a math degree programme to counter-balance these forces.
- tubby12345 5y ago
  >As a math grad, I think you had the advantage of having a lot more theory. The funny thing is that I didn't. I sucked exactly at the kind of combinatorics (figured that out in the first few weeks of stats where you have to count things cleverly), graph theory type stuff during my math BS and so I avoided all of it. I excelled at analysis but CLRS has very little of that (maybe a couple of sections on convergence of numerical algos?). What I did have was "mathematical maturity" enough to read proofs, but like I said there are so few that it doesn't matter IMHO.

shephardjhon 5y ago

I think the problem is CLRS is extremely dry and can easily put you to sleep so people do just enough to pass or get a good grade and forget about it. As a math grad, I think you had the advantage of having a lot more theory. Ideally more algo classes would combine with practical stuff like the youtube channel Coding Train or thr book Nature of Code by Schiffman to make things interesting for people who like to see things happen immediately.

Mandelmus 5y ago
> people who like to see things happen immediately Our modern culture and lifestyle cultivates a desire for instant gratification in ways that make rigorous study of math and theory incredibly hard for most people who don't have the guiding structure of a math degree programme to counter-balance these forces.
tubby12345 5y ago
>As a math grad, I think you had the advantage of having a lot more theory. The funny thing is that I didn't. I sucked exactly at the kind of combinatorics (figured that out in the first few weeks of stats where you have to count things cleverly), graph theory type stuff during my math BS and so I avoided all of it. I excelled at analysis but CLRS has very little of that (maybe a couple of sections on convergence of numerical algos?). What I did have was "mathematical maturity" enough to read proofs, but like I said there are so few that it doesn't matter IMHO.