Donald Knuth is Professor Emeritus of the Art of Computer Programming at Stanford University, and is well-known worldwide as the creator of the Tex typesetting language. Here he presents the third volume of his guide to computer programming.
Despite growing interest, basic information on methods and models for mathematically analyzing algorithms has rarely been directly accessible to practitioners, researchers, or students. An Introduction to the Analysis of Algorithms, Second Edition, organizes and presents that knowledge, fully introducing primary techniques and results in the field. Robert Sedgewick and the late Philippe Flajolet have drawn from both classical mathematics and computer science, integrating discrete mathematics, elementary real analysis, combinatorics, algorithms, and data structures. They emphasize the mathematics needed to support scientific studies that can serve as the basis for predicting algorithm performance and for comparing different algorithms on the basis of performance. Techniques covered in the first half of the book include recurrences, generating functions, asymptotics, and analytic combinatorics. Structures studied in the second half of the book include permutations, trees, strings, tries, and mappings. Numerous examples are included throughout to illustrate applications to the analysis of algorithms that are playing a critical role in the evolution of our modern computational infrastructure. Improvements and additions in this new edition include Upgraded figures and code An all-new chapter introducing analytic combinatorics Simplified derivations via analytic combinatorics throughout The book’s thorough, self-contained coverage will help readers appreciate the field’s challenges, prepare them for advanced results—covered in their monograph Analytic Combinatorics and in Donald Knuth’s The Art of Computer Programming books—and provide the background they need to keep abreast of new research. "[Sedgewick and Flajolet] are not only worldwide leaders of the field, they also are masters of exposition. I am sure that every serious computer scientist will find this book rewarding in many ways." —From the Foreword by Donald E. Knuth
“One of the most significant books in my life.” –Obie Fernandez, Author, The Rails Way “Twenty years ago, the first edition of The Pragmatic Programmer completely changed the trajectory of my career. This new edition could do the same for yours.” –Mike Cohn, Author of Succeeding with Agile , Agile Estimating and Planning , and User Stories Applied “. . . filled with practical advice, both technical and professional, that will serve you and your projects well for years to come.” –Andrea Goulet, CEO, Corgibytes, Founder, LegacyCode.Rocks “. . . lightning does strike twice, and this book is proof.” –VM (Vicky) Brasseur, Director of Open Source Strategy, Juniper Networks The Pragmatic Programmer is one of those rare tech books you’ll read, re-read, and read again over the years. Whether you’re new to the field or an experienced practitioner, you’ll come away with fresh insights each and every time. Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt wrote the first edition of this influential book in 1999 to help their clients create better software and rediscover the joy of coding. These lessons have helped a generation of programmers examine the very essence of software development, independent of any particular language, framework, or methodology, and the Pragmatic philosophy has spawned hundreds of books, screencasts, and audio books, as well as thousands of careers and success stories. Now, twenty years later, this new edition re-examines what it means to be a modern programmer. Topics range from personal responsibility and career development to architectural techniques for keeping your code flexible and easy to adapt and reuse. Read this book, and you’ll learn how to: Fight software rot Learn continuously Avoid the trap of duplicating knowledge Write flexible, dynamic, and adaptable code Harness the power of basic tools Avoid programming by coincidence Learn real requirements Solve the underlying problems of concurrent code Guard against security vulnerabilities Build teams of Pragmatic Programmers Take responsibility for your work and career Test ruthlessly and effectively, including property-based testing Implement the Pragmatic Starter Kit Delight your users Written as a series of self-contained sections and filled with classic and fresh anecdotes, thoughtful examples, and interesting analogies, The Pragmatic Programmer illustrates the best approaches and major pitfalls of many different aspects of software development. Whether you’re a new coder, an experienced programmer, or a manager responsible for software projects, use these lessons daily, and you’ll quickly see improvements in personal productivity, accuracy, and job satisfaction. You’ll learn skills and develop habits and attitudes that form the foundation for long-term success in your career. You’ll become a Pragmatic Programmer. Register your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details.
This book introduces the mathematics that supports advanced computer programming and the analysis of algorithms. The primary aim of its well-known authors is to provide a solid and relevant base of mathematical skills - the skills needed to solve complex problems, to evaluate horrendous sums, and to discover subtle patterns in data. It is an indispensable text and reference not only for computer scientists - the authors themselves rely heavily on it! - but for serious users of mathematics in virtually every discipline. Concrete Mathematics is a blending of CONtinuous and disCRETE mathematics. "More concretely," the authors explain, "it is the controlled manipulation of mathematical formulas, using a collection of techniques for solving problems." The subject matter is primarily an expansion of the Mathematical Preliminaries section in Knuth's classic Art of Computer Programming, but the style of presentation is more leisurely, and individual topics are covered more deeply. Several new topics have been added, and the most significant ideas have been traced to their historical roots. The book includes more than 500 exercises, divided into six categories. Complete answers are provided for all exercises, except research problems, making the book particularly valuable for self-study. Major topics include: Sums Recurrences Integer functions Elementary number theory Binomial coefficients Generating functions Discrete probability Asymptotic methods This second edition includes important new material about mechanical summation. In response to the widespread use of the first edition as a reference book, the bibliography and index have also been expanded, and additional nontrivial improvements can be found on almost every page. Readers will appreciate the informal style of Concrete Mathematics. Particularly enjoyable are the marginal graffiti contributed by students who have taken courses based on this material. The authors want to convey not only the importance of the techniques presented, but some of the fun in learning and using them.
The MMIX Supplement: Supplement to The Art of Computer ProgrammingVolumes 1, 2, 3 by Donald E. Knuth “I encourage serious programmers everywhere to sharpen their skills by devouring this book.” –Donald E. Knuth In the first edition of Volume 1 of The Art of Computer Programming, Donald E. Knuth introduced the MIX computer and its machine language: a teaching tool that powerfully illuminated the inner workings of the algorithms he documents. Later, with the publication of his Fascicle 1, Knuth introduced MMIX: a modern, 64-bit RISC replacement to the now-obsolete MIX. Now, with Knuth’s guidance and approval, Martin Ruckert has rewritten all MIX example programs from Knuth’s Volumes 1-3 for MMIX, thus completing this MMIX update to the original classic. Building on contributions from the international MMIXmasters volunteer group, Ruckert fully addresses MMIX basic concepts, information structures, random numbers, arithmetic, sorting, and searching. In the preparation of this supplement, about 15,000 lines of MMIX code were written and checked for correctness; over a thousand test cases were written and executed to ensure the code is of the highest possible quality. The MMIX Supplement should be read side by side with The Art of Computer Programming, Volumes 1-3, and Knuth’s Fascicle 1, which introduces the MMIX computer, its design, and its machine language. Throughout, this supplement contains convenient page references to corresponding coverage in the original volumes. To further simplify the transition to MMIX, Ruckert stayed as close as possible to the original–preserving programming style, analysis techniques, and even wording, while highlighting differences where appropriate. The resulting text will serve as a bridge to the future, helping readers apply Knuth’s insights in modern environments, until his revised, “ultimate” edition of The Art of Computer Programming is available. From Donald E. Knuth’s Foreword: “I am thrilled to see the present book by Martin Ruckert: It is jam-packed with goodies from which an extraordinary amount can be learned. Martin has not merely transcribed my early programs for MIX and recast them in a modern idiom. He has penetrated to their essence and rendered them anew with elegance and good taste. His carefully checked code represents a significant contribution to the art of pedagogy as well as to the art of programming.” Dr. Martin Ruckert maintains the MMIX home page at mmix.cs.hm.edu. He is professor of mathematics and computer science at Munich University of Applied Sciences in Munich, Germany.
Algorithmic puzzles are puzzles involving well-defined procedures for solving problems. This book will provide an enjoyable and accessible introduction to algorithmic puzzles that will develop the reader's algorithmic thinking. The first part of this book is a tutorial on algorithm design strategies and analysis techniques. Algorithm design strategies — exhaustive search, backtracking, divide-and-conquer and a few others — are general approaches to designing step-by-step instructions for solving problems. Analysis techniques are methods for investigating such procedures to answer questions about the ultimate result of the procedure or how many steps are executed before the procedure stops. The discussion is an elementary level, with puzzle examples, and requires neither programming nor mathematics beyond a secondary school level. Thus, the tutorial provides a gentle and entertaining introduction to main ideas in high-level algorithmic problem solving. The second and main part of the book contains 150 puzzles, from centuries-old classics to newcomers often asked during job interviews at computing, engineering, and financial companies. The puzzles are divided into three groups by their difficulty levels. The first fifty puzzles in the Easier Puzzles section require only middle school mathematics. The sixty puzzle of average difficulty and forty harder puzzles require just high school mathematics plus a few topics such as binary numbers and simple recurrences, which are reviewed in the tutorial. All the puzzles are provided with hints, detailed solutions, and brief comments. The comments deal with the puzzle origins and design or analysis techniques used in the solution. The book should be of interest to puzzle lovers, students and teachers of algorithm courses, and persons expecting to be given puzzles during job interviews.
Literate programming is a programming methodology that combines a programming language with a documentation language, making programs more easily maintained than programs written only in a high-level language. A literate programmer is an essayist who writes programs for humans to understand. When programs are written in the recommended style they can be transformed into documents by a document compiler and into efficient code by an algebraic compiler. This anthology of essays includes Knuth's early papers on related topics such as structured programming as well as the Computer Journal article that launched literate programming. Many examples are given, including excerpts from the programs for TeX and METAFONT. The final essay is an example of CWEB, a system for literate programming in C and related languages. Index included.
Nearly 30 years ago, John Horton Conway introduced a new way to construct numbers. Donald E. Knuth, in appreciation of this revolutionary system, took a week off from work on The Art of Computer Programming to write an introduction to Conway's method. Never content with the ordinary, Knuth wrote this introduction as a work of fiction--a novelette. If not a steamy romance, the book nonetheless shows how a young couple turned on to pure mathematics and found total happiness. The book's primary aim, Knuth explains in a postscript, is not so much to teach Conway's theory as "to teach how one might go about developing such a theory." He continues: "Therefore, as the two characters in this book gradually explore and build up Conway's number system, I have recorded their false starts and frustrations as well as their good ideas. I wanted to give a reasonably faithful portrayal of the important principles, techniques, joys, passions, and philosophy of mathematics, so I wrote the story as I was actually doing the research myself."... It is an astonishing feat of legerdemain. An empty hat rests on a table made of a few axioms of standard set theory. Conway waves two simple rules in the air, then reaches into almost nothing and pulls out an infinitely rich tapestry of numbers that form a real and closed field. Every real number is surrounded by a host of new numbers that lie closer to it than any other "real" value does. The system is truly "surreal." quoted from Martin Gardner, Mathematical Magic Show, pp. 16--19 Surreal Numbers, now in its 13th printing, will appeal to anyone who might enjoy an engaging dialogue on abstract mathematical ideas, and who might wish to experience how new mathematics is created. 0201038129B04062001