Customer Reviews

The Art of Computer Programming Boxed Set (Volumes 1-3)

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

These are really great books. If you are serious about algorithms and you are serius about data structures than this is a book you are looking for. But you should be Intermediate level programmer to read these books. Chapter on sorting is really a great one. Knuth has done a great job on this chapter.

I enjoyed this series of books tremendously. Detailed explanation of various algorithms. Uses a fictional MIX assembly language machine to show code examples. This is unusual, but turned about to be very very helpful. The excerises at the end are have a rating of how difficult they are to solve, so you can choose which ones u want to tackle. Detailed answers for almost ALL the problems at the end of the book - always a plus!

OH .. and there are some problems marked "Unsolved".. If you can solve any of these, you might just be able to get a PhD for it :)

These books are indisputably classics of the field, and like all classics they have religious adherents and equally firm detractors. The key difference between the two groups is that the adherents are interested in computer SCIENCE, whereas the rest are more taken with computer programming. The books are well written, quite mathematical, and abstract. The books deal with the core subjects of computer science and shy away from the trendy, and so some people tend to see them as anachronistic. Nevertheless, they are deservedly core references in computer science, and a joy for any patient, theoretically minded reader. There are three points I believe should be made. 1) a lot of the detractors of the books are saying correct things: the books don't deal with hot topics, they do present things in greater detail than is necessary in day to day programming, they are books they require a lot of the reader. What they don't recognize is that this is the intention, and that there is nothing wrong with that. The book is targeted at those with a geniune interest in theoretical computer science. 2) many reviewers complain about Knuth's typesetting system, TeX. What they fail to recognize is that TeX is incredibly useful, and about as user friendly as could be expected, for the task for which it was designed: typesetting professional quality mathematics. Anyone who challenges this statement would have to contend with virtually the entire community of people who write papers using higher mathematics, including virtually all professional physicists, mathematicians, and computer scientists. 3) some people accuse Knuth's books of being poorly written. These people are ignorant: either they have not read the works, or they would not recognize skillful writing if they saw it. These books are splendid examples of scientific writing, and are justifiably acclaimed as such. In short, Knuth's books have ensured that the word "science" deserves its place in the phrase "computer science"

These books are indisputably classics of the field, and like all classics they have religious adherents and equally firm detractors. The key difference between the two groups is that the adherents are interested in computer SCIENCE, whereas the rest are more taken with computer programming. The books are well written, quite mathematical, and abstract. The books deal with the core subjects of computer science and shy away from the trendy, and so some people tend to see them as anachronistic. Nevertheless, they are deservedly core references in computer science, and a joy for any patient, theoretically minded reader. There are three points I believe should be made. 1) a lot of the detractors of the books are saying correct things: the books don't deal with hot topics, they do present things in greater detail than is necessary in day to day programming, they are books they require a lot of the reader. What they don't recognize is that this is the intention, and that there is nothing wrong with that. The book is targeted at those with a geniune interest in theoretical computer science. 2) many reviewers complain about Knuth's typesetting system, TeX. What they fail to recognize is that TeX is incredibly useful, and about as user friendly as could be expected, for the task for which it was designed: typesetting professional quality mathematics. Anyone who challenges this statement would have to contend with virtually the entire community of people who write papers using higher mathematics, including virtually all professional physicists, mathematicians, and computer scientists. 3) some people accuse Knuth's books of being poorly written. These people are ignorant: either they have not read the works, or they would not recognize skillful writing if they saw it. These books are splendid examples of scientific writing, and are justifiably acclaimed as such. In short, Knuth's books have ensured that the word "science" deserves its place in the phrase "computer science"

I am just buying another set since my first set got damaged in transit. This is a great book for a programmer and anyone who thinks otherwise, atleast in my humble opinion, is not a computer scientist. It is detailed, mathematical and has tons of great problem organized by difficulty. I can safely challenge anyone who doesn't appreciate this book, to solve some of the more diffcult problems.

Great book !!!

This is a work of surpassing beauty, akin to Beethoven's Fifth. This book introduced me to the joy of computer science and still fills me with wonder that one man could do so much.

Dr. Knuth writes as much of mind as he does of computer programming. What the reader sees and learns is how mentality moves and is moved by the algorithmic distribution of information.

To grok the content, waiting is fullness.

As Knuth himself says, it is impossible for any one person to keep up with all the research in computer science, but these 3 volumes do a remarkably good job of distilling the most important results and explaining them with mathematical rigor.

Each volume contains 2 chapters. Ch. 1, Basic Concepts: mathematical foundations and a description of MIX, a hypothetical machine (now available in software emulations). Ch. 2, Information Structures: lists, trees, memory allocation, garbage collection. Ch. 3, Random Numbers: how to produce series of "random" numbers and test their statistical properties. Ch. 4, Arithmetic: algorithms for integer and floating-point arithmetic. Ch. 5, Sorting: both in memory and on disks or tapes. Ch. 6, Searching: sequential, binary, hashing.

Despite the detailed coverage of the topics, which often involves esoteric mathematical notation, the author's lively style makes the algorithms and the main theoretical results relatively easy to grasp. If all you care about is getting a program to run, buy another book; but if you really want to understand how and why software works, there's nothing quite like this.

A must for all programmers. It is star of stars

Donal Knuth is truly a genius in the Computer Science fields. I read these books to find some errata :), but couldn't find one so far.. and I even enjoy reading the books meanwhile..