Great book on Datastructures. Much verbose than the other books. But the java example in this book are horrible, particularly the variables used. Just letters are used as variables, instead of appropriate names, making it very hard to follow the example.

So overall, I would suggest buying Adam Drozdek's algorithm book.

This book is a total mess, I don't know if it's the author or the publisher but is written in a style that got me really frustrated.

The author has the bad habit of start explaining a thing a little bit (not enough to fully understand it) then say something like "we will cover this topic in depth in chapter 7", and you are in chapter 2. This sort of jump back and forth is completely frustrating, the book doesn't seem to have any kind of flow. The same technique is used inside a chapter too, you start reading about something then the author start diverging in the middle of the topic to come back after few pages.

The code samples are a total mess, it's just really bad. I mean common, read any introductory book in software development and you get warned in the first chapter not to name your variables i,j,v i1...just give them a meaningful name.
Every time I read sample code in this book I had to spent at least 20 minutes deciphering what the variables are suppose to be, why the author define variables that are not used at all or they don't have any kind of effect on the end result (yes, I did found a whole bunch of these). If you don't know Java or don't care to follow any of Java standards fine, write C code or something, at least I will be prepared to read obfuscated code.

I give this book 2 stars, it has after all a lot of information in it, even if it is scattered all over the place

This book is a total mess, I don't know if it's the author or the publisher but is written in a style that got me really frustrated.

The author has the bad habit of start explaining a thing a little bit (not enough to fully understand it) then say something like "we will cover this topic in depth in chapter 7", and you are in chapter 2. This sort of jump back and forth is completely frustrating, the book doesn't seem to have any kind of flow. The same technique is used inside a chapter too, you start reading about something then the author start diverging in the middle of the topic to come back after few pages.

The code samples are a total mess, it's just really bad. I mean common, read any introductory book in software development and you get warned in the first chapter not to name your variables i,j,v i1...just give them a meaningful name.
Every time I read sample code in this book I had to spent at least 20 minutes deciphering what the variables are suppose to be, why the author define variables that are not used at all or they don't have any kind of effect on the end result (yes, I did found a whole bunch of these). If you don't know Java or don't care to follow any of Java standards fine, write C code or something, at least I will be prepared to read obfuscated code.

I give this book 2 stars, it has after all a lot of information in it, even if it is scattered all over the place

These text(s) do for the software engineer what Cormen's book does for the scientist. To be knowledgable with algorithms will greatly seperate you from a novice.

Very good examples and using Java is very smart because most OO programmers can easily understand the language (C# is practically identical).

For those who struggle with the Cormen book, (Like I did) it would do you well to get this book. You will refer to it time and time again in your career as a software developer while the Cormen book collects dust on the shelf.

This series is a treasure to keep. The book is filled with great diagrams and very easy to understand language.

This series is a treasure to keep. The book is filled with great diagrams and very easy to understand language.

First is Knuth, second is Corman that brings the art of algorithms closer to earth. Then is Sedgewick. This book provides very good balance between theory and practice and lets the practitioners know that programming is a bit more than just writing "if" and "for" and that the art of algorithms is not only art but also science. This book evolved from early editions (Algorithms in C, 1990) and keeps the standard. These two volumes is the must for every serious programmer.

Cons: Java code is a bit "C-ish" and makes it clear that it is easy to write C program in Java. In addition, section Geometric Algorithms from 1990 edition and other material following this section is missing in newer editions. Maybe this material will be included in Volume 3, that as rumor says, is in preparation.

Sedgewick's publisher (Addison-Wesley) has gathered his two books, Algorithms in Java, parts 1-5, into one resource for developers. Convenient, for you now have something that spans the most common algorithms encountered during computer programming. Logically, the combination of the two volumes is very coherent.

(Below is my review of the Part 1-4 book.)

In my work, I have a bunch of interlinked objects. I can use tables to display these, but showing linkages is awkward. It is far more natural to graph them. This lets me use evolution, for the human eye and brain are excellent at processing images and discerning patterns in them. But I also want to algorithmically find groupings and invariant properties of the graphs. There is a danger here. In graph theory, it is very easy to inadvertantly pose a simple question that is computationally hard to solve (NP-hard). Conversely, I don't want to reinvent the wheel. From graph theory, there may well be properties of my graph that I can easily extract. Certainly, the amount of research on graphs is voluminous.

But how does one take advantage of that? Consulting research journals in maths for papers on graph theory is really feasible only for the career mathematician. But for me, graphs are just a tool; not an ends per se. So I need a book that has the right amount of complexity. It needs to get enough into the subject, beyond the trivial exposition of definitions. Yet it should not bury me in lemmas and theorems.

I found such a book! This one. A well deserved third iteration. The explanations are extremely clear. Before I encountered this text, I used Donald Knuth's "Art of Computer Programming" (which is also put out by Addison-Wesley) and his treatment of graphs. But Sedgewick's discourse is far more extensive and, to me, just as well written.

A bonus is the extensive problem sets at the ends of each chapter. Even if I have no inclination to do them, the results they give are a valuable extension of the text, by providing an extra summary of the research. I only wish that Sedgewick would provide answers, like Knuth. But this is a just a quibble.

This edition has example code in Java. Certainly nothing wrong with that. [I program in Java.] But really the code should be a secondary consideration to you. If you are a programmer and you can understand the text, then you should be of a calibre that you can write the code.