【Addison Wesley 2004】Algorithmics: The Spirit of Computing (3rd Edition)Algorithmics: The Spirit of Computing (3rd Edition)By David Harel, Yishai FeldmanPublisher: Addison Wesley Number Of Pages: 536 Publication Date: 2004-06-11 ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0321117840 ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780321117847 Binding: PaperbackBook Description: This book presents the concepts, methods, and results that are fundamental to the science of computing. The book begins with the basic ideas of algorithms such as the structure and the methods of data manipulation, and then moves on to demonstrate how to design an accurate and efficient algorithm. Inherent limitations to algorithmic design are also discussed throughout the second part of the text. The third edition features an introduction to the object-oriented paradigm along with new approaches to computation. Anyone interested in being introduced to the theory of computer science.Summary: uncritical description of Extreme ProgrammingRating: 3The book covers the field of important algorithms used in computing. The writing is elegant and distills the gist of the various methods, without drowning you in small details. There is an excellent chapter on programming languages, that describes the different types of languages, like object oriented and functional. It is only meant as a preliminary to the main content of the book. Yet it can be usefully read in its own right as a very concise understanding of all languages. The book also describes software engineering, which is not strictly about solving a given problem. Here the issue is how to manage a team of programmers and a code base that can go into the millions of lines. Unfortunately, the text has a superficial and uncritical description of Extreme Programming. Others who have tried XP have discovered its brittleness. And there have been very few, if any, major software projects that were successful while using XP.Summary: A great book!Rating: 5This book is the most amazing book on algorithms I've read. The concepts are so well explained that moving to "An introduction to Algorithms by Cormen, Rivest" will be very easy. I come from a non-computer science background. When I started my coursework in Computer Science I was intimidated with Cormen - (although that IS THE MOST AUTHORITATIVE and a complete text!) until I found Harel. Harel covers ALL the key aspects of algorithms and quite a bit of Data Structs too. He explains all the concepts in a non-mathematical, yet intellectually stimulating manner.One can literally read through the book in single day and gain insight into the most difficult topics like, unsolvable problems, hard problems, NP and NP complete problems. On a side note - I pity those reviewers who returned the masterpiece and took objection to Bible quotes. Please grow up and look at what the book has to offer instead of taking objection to such insignificant embellishmentsSummary: Very interesting readRating: 5This is a book about solving problems, finding the limits of the kinds of problems we can solve, and those we will never solve, and how we solve them. It is also a book about the essential results of computer science, and will give the reader a better understanding of what computers can do, and why some problems in computer science are much harder then they appear. As far as I know, this is the only book that distills the essence of computer science, and presents it in a format suitable for the average reader. This is computer science's answer to Stephen Hawkings "A Brief History of Time".Summary: Content OK, Religion NOTRating: 1I know this may be a computing classic since one tends to find this title on reading lists, but frankly I regret having bought it. I am not troubled by the contents of the book or the way Mr Harel describes them, however, I do strongly object to the fact that he continuously bothers the reader with bible quotations that seem to be growing on every second page like a malignant cancer. This may not offend you if you are Jewish or Christian, but short of that it is an annoyance of global proportions. If I want to read the Bible I will take a copy of the Bible and read it, but if I take a book about Algorithmics I don't want to be forced to combat missionaries. I will return this book asap!Summary: 'The Essence of Theoretical Computer Science'Rating: 5As the author says, the members of the research community of ComputerScience have done their discipline a disservice by not making anyspecial efforts to write accessible accounts of the field, as a resultof which the 'layman' still has little idea of what goes on 'under thehood', so to say. He has therefore undertaken the challenging task of presenting the basicideas underpinning Computer Science in a way that's easy for the generalreader to grasp. He sets out to present the essential notions ofAlgorithms and data structures, Turing machines, Finite state machines,Decidability, Computability, Complexity, NP-completeness, Correctness,Parallel algorithms, Probabilistic algorithms, and more with a minimumof mathematics and yet without sacrificing intellectual rigour - andmost admirably, succeeds in doing so. David Harel is a big name in Theoretical Computer Science, one of theleading researchers, and chairman of the Applied Mathematics andComputer Science Department at the Weizmann Institute of Science.What made my mind up about reading this book were the strongly encouragingremarks on the back cover by Aho Hopcroft, two of the foremost authorsand researchers in the field, who've written some great textbooks themselves. This book presents all the basic fundamental ideas of the theory of computation,using as little maths as possible. Yet, the intellectual rigour is nevercompromised, which means that the reader truly gets a flavour of how aComputer Scientist thinks, and how much fun it can be. It also shows you how certain problems cannot be solved cheaply while otherscannot be solved at all (solved exactly, that is), no matter how much'computing power' you have - ie theory proves the existence of certainfundamental limits on the problems that we can hope to solve. The writing is exceptionally good - like a true master of his subject,Harel makes concepts seem easy to grasp, though you may find that lateron, you realize it was quite a subtle notion that was discussed.The illustations are a great help, and occasional humour provides relieffrom all the thinking you'll be doing! Even though it's written for the general reader, it is also useful forprogrammers, systems analysts and designers, software engineers andstudents, since Harel cuts to the core of the concepts and offersvaluable insights into the theory that they might already know. All in all, this book covers amazing ground and is a great introductionto algorithms and the theory of computation. For probing further, you'llneed mathematics and textbooks, but this an excellent starting point.……