Programming Pearls
by Jon Bentley
This book had it seeds in a column Bentley wrote (also titled Programming Pearls) for the Communication of the ACM. The book is filled with code samples and explanations, focusing on algorithms for searching, sorting, and other common programming problems.
The code, written in C, tends to be a bit sparse. Sometimes it took me a few minutes to grok what it was doing, even though Bentley gives explanations (which are also quite sparse).
Each chapter contains 10 to 20 additional problems for the reader to complete. As such, it would make a great textbook for a pragmatic software engineering college course. Working out just a few of the problems per chapter would result in a lot of coding experience and algorithm knowledge.
Reading this book made me feel a little bit guilty. I just didn’t have the time to sit down and work out any of those additional problems. Most of my time was spent trying to understand the solutions he poses in the chapter text. This is definitely not light reading. Make sure your brain is fully engaged before diving in.
I would recommend this book, but I wouldn’t make it required reading for anyone with a college degree. If you don’t have a college degree, you owe it to yourself to pick this up and work through some of the problems.
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Programming Pearls is on the Code Complete Introductory Level reading list.
