More of a book on testing algorithms in Java than producing them

This book contains explanations and implementations along with example uses of various basic algorithms all in the Java language. The first five chapters explain the basics of algorithms such as iteration and recursion before introducing the reader to some fundamental data structures such as lists, stacks, and queues. Chapters 6 through 10 deal with various sorting algorithms as well as some prerequisite topics such as keys and ordering. Chapters 7 through 15 cover efficient techniques for storing and searching by way of hashing, trees, sets, and maps. Chapters 16 through 19 include several specialized more advanced topics as well as a general discussion on common performance pitfalls and optimization techniques.

If the authors had stuck to the subject matter this book could have been very good. Like most everyone else, I found this book's biggest problem to be its emphasis on testing the implementations of these structures and JUnit versus an understanding of the usefulness of the algorithms themselves and their mathematical and time complexity. Everyone coming to this book could be expected to be well-versed in Java programming, but I don't think you should expect them to know software testing that well. It's just not something you expect to deal with when you are learning the theory and implementation of algorithms. I still highly recommend Bundle of Algorithms in Java, Third Edition, Parts 1-5: Fundamentals, Data Structures, Sorting, Searching, and Graph Algorithms (3rd Edition) by Robert Sedgewick. It is sufficiently mathematically rigorous while demonstrating everything in the Java language versus Cormen's pseudocode in "Introduction to Algorithms", which is the standard classroom textbook on this subject.

Other Reviews

• Excellent for what it is
• More of a book on testing algorithms in Java than producing them
• An unnecessary blend of topics
• Excellent on the basics and coding style, superficial on advanced or unusual subjects