Art of Computer Programming, The: Combinatorial Algorithms, Volume 4B

I have all of Knuth's books. I have read them all too. They are NOT light reading, they are heavy duty text books revealing the basics of computer science. I can pretty much guarantee you'll be a professional if you get through these and understand them. Work the exercises, they cause you to remember where to use the technique and how to combine them to do useful things.

This fifth volume in Knuth's "The Art of Computer Programming" continues the level of excellence of the previous volumes. The content includes an overview of backtracking methods for solving various combinatorial problems, then moves on to exact cover problems and variations thereon and finally satisfiability problems. Applications of exact cover problems include solving Sudoku puzzles, four-coloring maps, and finding fault-free tilings of rectangles. Satisfiability is the prototypical NP complete problem, so improvements in SAT solvers improve our ability to solve a great number of problems with real-world applications. As with all TAOCP books, the exercises are the best part. They are numerous, cover a wide range of topics, and are marked with difficulty estimates to help the reader know what they are getting into before they start. But I encourage all readers to try some of the exercises. Computer science is not a spectator sport and trying the exercises helps cement in the material.

Professor Knuth’s writing is always enjoyable, but if you aren’t taking time to do some of the exercises, you’re missing what makes any of Knuth’s books amazing, which is the interplay between his expository text and your working to discover some things on your own. It’s like you are dancing a waltz without a partner; you may move across the floor - but you haven’t truly experienced a ballroom dance. What you discover is text + time spent solving some of the exercises gives you not just a deeper understanding of the material, but let’s you feel you are in his class - learning from him - and you feel pride in solving the problems. My point: Knuth’s text is a joy - but how he structures those exercises - that’s sublime, and in my opinion, it’s text + exercises together that make these books the best academic texts I’ve read in any subject.

The Art of Computer Programming is a classic set of books. With 4B, Don is getting to the fun stuff: the more obscure, combinatorial math that computers excel at. I've been a student of recreational math for 50 years, but there is material on almost every page I've never seen before, all exquisitely diagrammed and explained and/or solved. He's also contacted many people from recreational math for this volume. What any incredible book -- just from the comprehensiveness of the problems covered. But he also lists solving methods for almost everything. This book is basically a toolbox for solving almost any problem. Many of these algorithms, I am not yet familiar with. But I plan to study this book carefully. Highly recommended.

Das Standardwerk schlechthin. Endlich ein neuer Band.

Sem comentários. Literatura obrigatória para quem quer ser programador de computadores.

Everything as should be!

Das Buch hat ein großes Eigengewicht und Preis 😉 leider war die Verpackung eher gar nicht dem entsprechend. Das Buch sieht aus als sei es schon ein Semester zur Uni gegangen. Angestoßen, Umschlag zerknittert, alles nur wegen einer unpassenden Verpackung.