This was a mediocre text that is a rewrite of the same text in C++. As is common, the book reads like it was updated by search and replace.

This is for the fourth edition, which from other reviews doesn't suck as bad as the first two...

It's an okay text book - but I pity anybody who doesn't have either experiance working with data structures in C or C++ OR who hasn't taken a Finite Math class specifically for CS.

Only get it because you need it for a course, spend as little as possible and then dump it on eBay as quick as you can. Not worth keeping as a reference.

This book, as many have said, is used in numerous introductory courses in computer science. It was recently dropped by my college after it was disowned by the professors who chose it---we students threw so much scorn on the book no one wanted to admit they had anything to do with it.

The book has a very idiosyncratic style. It likes to use some unnecessarily specific class and method names for its examples, and fails nearly every time when it attempts to justify certain proofs about big-O and algorithm runtimes. In fact, the authors seem to think it adequate to make a broad statement and then give a simple example.

All in all, you're best finding webpages written by random professors than purchasing this morass.

This book, as many have said, is used in numerous introductory courses in computer science. It was recently dropped by my college after it was disowned by the professors who chose it---we students threw so much scorn on the book no one wanted to admit they had anything to do with it.

The book has a very idiosyncratic style. It likes to use some unnecessarily specific class and method names for its examples, and fails nearly every time when it attempts to justify certain proofs about big-O and algorithm runtimes. In fact, the authors seem to think it adequate to make a broad statement and then give a simple example.

All in all, you're best finding webpages written by random professors than purchasing this morass.

I strongly recommend this book as a textbook for learning how to program Data Structures in the Java Programming Language. It has very clear examples with full code, and very nice explanations that explanation an abstract subject. I learned Data Structures in C++ and this book made learning them in Java a piece of cake.

It is worth to have waited for 10 days for the book
It covered up to date java technology and provide additional informations about the implementations of algorithms in real life.
I got many usefull java and algorithm theories from this book and I think it fits to people who want to learn java and the other who have java knowledge.

I'm finding the 4th edition reasonably clear and comprehensive. However, the book is teeming with typographical errors. Most of them are typesetting errors involving superscripts and subscripts that overlap the adjacent characters so they aren't fully legible. But there are numerous other miscellaneous typos.

So, I've been marking them in my copy, in order to submit them to the authors or publisher, but apparently they don't want to know about the typos. The "errata" section at java.datastructures.net contains no errata and no instructions on how to submit errata. I wrote to one of the authors to ask how to submit errata, but received no reply.

got the book very quickly. also the book was sold at a great price.

When I learned that this was the required book for my introductory data structures class this semester, I was somewhat worried by the large number of very negative reviews I saw it had received here. However, during the first class meeting, the professor made a point of instructing us to get the third edition (published in 2004), explaining that the differences between the second and third editions were significant.

Judging by the older reviews below, he was right - the book I read seems to bear little if any resemblance to the one denounced by the other reviewers. I found it clear and readable, though it was rather basic and dry. But then, I wasn't expecting great literature - this is a introductory compsci textbook, after all. Though it could be dull at times, it generally managed to get its information across clearly, which is all it needs to do. There were some typos, of course, though probably not more than should be expected to accompany such a major revision. The book's main flaw was an index that had essentially no relation to the actual text itself. A corrected index is available at the book's Web site.

In terms of organization, Goodrich and Tamassia start off with a brief introduction to Java, object oriented design and a brief and very basic discussion of running time and asymptotic analysis. They then work their way through basic data structures and abstract data types - stacks, queues, vectors, lists, trees (general, binary, and binary search), priority queues, heaps, dictionaries, hash tables and graphs. They discuss the structures' purposes and major operations, analyze the operations' running times, and include decent, heavily-documented Java implementations of some of the structures and methods. They also do some stuff with algorithms, though generally nothing very complex or sophisticated. I used this book in an introductory data structures course at a liberal arts college, which managed to cover pretty much everything in the book with little difficulty.

There are a lot of exercises at the end of each chapter. Goodrich and Tamassia divide them up into progressively more complex "Reinforcement", "Creativity" and "Projects" sections. My instructor preferred to assign problems and programming assignments of his own creation, though, so I don't know how helpful or useful the exercises in the book actually are.

All in all, it seem Goodrich and Tamassia noticed the sort of reviews the earlier editions of this book were getting and took steps to correct the many problems they had. I expect that if you have to use the book in a data structures course, you'll find it at least reasonably clear and generally acceptable. As long as you're using the third edition, that is.

Like many other reviewers, I had to purchase this book for one of my CS courses. As a reference book, it gets no more than 1 star. I find it often confusing in its explanations, incomplete code examples and uneven pace. I understand that it was designed to be a textbook, but it miserably fails to be of any value to a student. For 100+ bucks, I expected a lot more.

This is required reading in a CS course I take, and I find it to be an annoyingly confusing book. The language is exceptionally unclear, remeniscient of a bad math book on calculus. The code examples of ideas are sparse and skinny on details. Far too often something is "trivial" or left as an exercise. In addition the accompanying exercises are far harder than the in text material (what little there is to look for for reference). Some subjects which I would expect to have several pages on, IE: the ideas of polymorphism, casting and inheritanc , contain a mere page or less. The claim that the book is "well illustrated" is also quite false, unless you feel like counting the pictures in the headers of the chapters. Overall I have found this book to be a meanace to my learning the material and I am thankfull that I possess an exceptional CS teacher who is able to fully explain what the book fails to do. {Hint to the authors: your book should NOT read like a lecture, it should read like a real textbook, one that actually covers MORE than the professor does in class instead of far less.)

As a side note, I wish to note that Professor Morelli's book Java, Java ,Java (ISBN 0130333700) is most excelent (although it does not cover the same topic) some of the intro materials (chapters 1 and 2) overlap, and I found myself referring to it constantly in preference to this monstrosity that I now call a textbook.

This text is one of the most poorly written I have read on the subject of data structures. The JAVA overview should be removed since it goes into no real details pertinent to data structures, and uses a grammar to define the language which serves to confuse more than assist in learning. I suppose they felt they needed to be different from other texts in some way to sell... how about writing a clear readable text with good code examples? There is apparently no code in the text which is compilable (only code fragment) and obvious errors in some of these code fragments. The writing and questions are ambiguous and unclear in many places. I don't see why any university would choose to use this text. Maybe the publisher is giving kickbacks to the department?!? You could spend your money more wisely... such as on Sedgewick's Algorithms in C++, and a JAVA text such as Deitel and Deitel as a resource instead...

I am using this book for a course on the Dutch Open University. As I am aleady graduated on Operations Research, it is really nice to see how some algorithms like the shortest path and the maximal flow can be implemented with classes in Java. This first part of the book is more concerned with the basics and can be a bit boring before the real fun begins. However, the abstract level is quit high and sometimes it takes some effort to fully understand what the author means to say. If you like mathematics tou probably will like the book.

I have taken Java programming, and feel that I have a strong understanding of the language.However, I'm currently using this book in my CS class and find this book useless for learning Data Structures and Algorithms(ADT). I have recently purchased another book to use as a cross reference to fill in the many holes this book has.

While this subject tends to be abstract to begin with, this author takes abstaction to a painful level. This book is not for learning Data Structures and Algorithms, but maybe(I emphasize maybe)useful as a reference book if you know the subject already.

With the poor examples and explainations, most of the problems in the book are impossible to do with out some cross reference.

Some how I think the author lost sight of who his readers are and the purpose of this book, which should be to explain the subject in detail and at the level of his intended reader.

I had to use this book for my CIS Data Structures class. The book's description of actual data structures is confusing. The implementations in Java are sparse. The website is not useful. I even emailed the authors' for clarification on some topics and they never returned my mail. What ever you do, don't buy this book.