5 ms·
TopCoder: Algorithm Tutorials
- Hitchhiker 15y agohttp://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0387948600/ref=ase_thealgorithmrepo/ http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0387948600/ref=ase_th... might work better for some.
- SkyMarshal 15y agoAnd also its awesome home page: http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~algorith/ http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~algorith/ Click through to some of the actual algorithm pages, for instance the Traveling Salesman Problem: http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~algorith/files/traveling-salesman.shtml http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~algorith/files/traveling-salesman.... Great book, great site.
- Hitchhiker 15y agoAbsolutely. Think they have a kindle edition out too.. its going to be cheaper. The book hits the sweet spot for most practical folks and also has great theoretical connectors / flow. After someone spends around six months of working / implementing things out of joy, you will be able to discern what to keep or reject from other sources.
- estel 15y agoThe Kindle version is of the 1998 edition and is available in the US only; which is more than a bit rubbish.
- Hitchhiker 15y agoerr.. I am based in Australia, got the 2008 / 2nd edition on kindle just fine. another url -> http://www.algorist.com http://www.algorist.com
- alttag 15y agoSo? I've on occasion changed my Kindle account address to the U.K. (Amazon's office in Slough, more specifically), ordered a U.K.-only book (back when AMZN and the publishers were having their public spat) and changed my address back. I suspect the same might work in reverse. It's a kludge, but it works.
- krzyk 15y agoAnd has unfavorable reviews on amazon. I'll wait for the second edition on Kindle.
- prithee 15y agoSteven Skiena was one of the most enlightening professors I've had the pleasure to be lectured at during my education at SUNY Stony Brook. It is worth mentioning that further within this link he has posted video lectures from 1997 and 2007, along with audio and presentation slides: (Analysis of Algorithms Course): http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~algorith/video-lectures/ http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~algorith/video-lectures/ (Programming Challenges Course): http://www.algorithm.cs.sunysb.edu/programmingchallenges/ http://www.algorithm.cs.sunysb.edu/programmingchallenges/
- ianbishop 15y agoI personally learned from Skienna's other book Programming Challenges first (http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Challenges-Steven-S-Skiena/dp/0387001638 http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Challenges-Steven-S-Skiena...). Then when my knowledge had matured a bit, I was able to digest The Algorithm Design Manual a little better.
- Hitchhiker 15y agoIn case you've not already, head toward http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/ http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/ and experience further bliss.
- chollida1 15y agorelated to the url givem: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0387948600/ref=ase_thealgorithmrepo/ http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0387948600/ref=ase_th... Does any one know what the "ref=ase_thealgorithmrepo/" at the end of the url means? If I remove it, it doesn't seem to change anything.
- mcoffee 15y agoIt's a referral id. It basically tells Amazon who sent you; in this case "thealgorithmrepo", which is probably the folks in SkyMarshal's link below.
- jisaacstone 15y agotracking what you clicked on to get to the product page. does not change the page itself. If you want to have fun you can change it to "ref=monkey_poo" as I am wont to do.
- chollida1 15y agoDoes this mean they would get any affiliate commission if I buy the book through this link? Seems like it would be nice to help them out.
- Hitchhiker 15y agobless the author then, to solve the mystery, the referral code is simply the one here : http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~skiena/#books http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~skiena/#books
- chollida1 15y agoThanks! To be clear, I wasn't trying to imply anything sneaky going on. I was curious as to what these parameters mean :) I appreciate the response
- Hitchhiker 15y agoI second him. My entry "ref=kung_fu_panda" impacts a mysterious star somewhere in Messier 36.
- DrHankPym 15y agoWould totally buy if there was an e-book version.
- jim_kaiser 15y agoI think the Top Coder tutorials are really thought provoking and they cover a lot of ground. A really good summary of the core concepts which you can further research.
- je42 15y agoAm I the only one that thinks the tutorials are a bit weird. For example: their QuickSort implementation looks pretty much "sub-optimal"". ( They allocate new arrays in each recursive call ) Another example: Shortest-Path search. A-Star is not mentioned.
- Hitchhiker 15y agoI suffer at times from being too polite. Thanks for starting the drilling.
- ianbishop 15y agoAgreed but you have to keep in mind what the algorithms are being used for. You're going to have better luck implementing Dijkstra's quickly in a competition than you are A-Star. Not to mention A-Star is based mostly on heuristics and if you don't have time (or don't care) then bad heuristics makes it just as fast as Dikstra's.
- anonymoushn 15y agoRegarding A-star, it doesn't generally come up in this kind of contest. When you are doing a TopCoder/ICPC/Project Euler problem and you need to find shortest paths, you need exact solutions because you want your result to match the judges' result. In a programming contest in which the programs compete against each other, instead of passing or failing, A-star would be much more important.
- theycallhimtom 15y agoOne note to make is that these tutorials are specifically designed for programming contests not for the real world. A lot of the stuff applies to both, but things like constant factor optimization and heuristics are generally not part of programming classes and a huge part of the real world.
- suyash 15y agoThanks!