Programming Pearls 2nd Edition, Kindle Edition

Bentley's classic, "Programming Pearls", makes an important point, namely that you won't get good performance without careful coding and profile-based tuning. And it's made clearly, concisely and with compelling examples. The choice of language (C), and the choice of problems (those from computer science 101 we all think we know cold) betrays the sophistication of Bentley's analyses.Suppose, for the sake of argument, that you have a binary search that's holding up your loop. Or your Huffman coding just isn't snappy enough? "How is that possible?", you might say, fresh out of computer-science 201, "Didn't we just prove these algorithms are optimal?" Well yes, asymptotically up to an arbitrary constant multiplier. But this is the real world, and your code needs to go faster. If this sounds like your predicament, pull up a chair and read "Programming Pearls"; if it's not, you might wonder what all the fuss is about.Next, fire up your favorite hardware (Sparc or x86 or PowerPC), favorite language (Perl, Java, or even C), favorite release of that language, along with your favorite interpreter or compiler (Hotspot or standard? GCC or Visual C++). And you'll need a profiler; might as well treat yourself to a good one if you're serious. Then fire up your code with a representative range realistic test data and observe what happens. Function by function, byte by byte. Then try to be as clever as Bentley in (a) figuring out why, (b) trying a range of alternatives, and (c) making it all go faster with minor tuning. Typically, you'll find a single bottleneck taking an order of magnitude more time than everything else, and work on that. Repeat until fast enough.As well as this simple, yet surprisingly effective and realistic methodology, Bentley provides a range of concrete tips on making things go faster, from tweaking data structures to unfolding loops (especially precomputing low-order cases) to using accumulators and caching, all with an eye to underlying memory, communication and CPU resources.Real code that has to run fast, like the code that we write at my current company for signal processing, speech recognition and speech synthesis, typically looks like the end-product of Bentley's refactorings. And it gets that way following exactly the path he lays out: analyze the problem, choose the right algorithm (or the right few to evaluate), and then tune it up using profiling."Programming Pearls" is the beginning of the road. You will need to look elsewhere for topics such as compression for memory saving, numerical algorithms, effective concurrency and memory sharing, efficient buffered I/O, garbage collection, and the wide range of dynamic programming and heuristic techniques.

In my experience it is a good book for students , and also for professionals, who want the excellence in programming. All the concepts can be applied in every platform.I followed Jon since he started writing at the CACM with his column "Programming Pearls". Now, in the second edition it is actualized, and I have all those columns with theory and exercises together.

Programming pearls is a compendium of 15 columns previously published in Communications of the ACM. The columns cover a wide range of topics related to programming: from requirements gathering to performance tuning. The focus is primarily on coding techniques and algorithms.Each column has been reorganized as a chapter. Chapters usually start with the presentation of a practical problem. Then various solutions are presented and are used as lessons to be learned. The writing style is clear and fun.Programming Pearls is not a usual book teaching new programming concepts. Although it contains good and sometimes quite novel ideas, the aim of the book is not to teach something new. For example, the search and sort algorithms presented are well-known. The aim is to remind programmers to think hard before starting writing code. The book has great chapter on back-of-the-envelope computation for example which is useful when comparing various solutions. The easy solutions to the column's problems are usually very slow. The `good' solutions are lightening fast but require thinking hard about the problems. I would recommend having a book about algorithms nearby when reading Programming Pearls.The book is full of little (and some not so little) exercises that are given throughout the chapters. Solutions or hints are given at the end. The exercises usually take a few hours to do properly and are a great resource. Again the emphasis is on making the reader think.If you consider programming a repetitious activity, Programming Pearls will provoke you into thinking harder about finding elegant solutions. I recommend this book.

If you want to learn about the latest web programming frameworks, design patterns, J2EE, .NET, CSS, RoR, etc. then please stay away from this book. Once you think you mastered it all, became a professional programmer with also a nice CS degree under your belt come back and start to read this book for pure pleasure and wisdom. It is with high probability that you'll have both and more than you could have imagined.Bentley's classic work is still relevant but not in ways most programmers will imagine at the beginning. You'll probably never go and write your own search routines and re-implement classical data structures (you'll use the one that comes with the standard libraries of your language of choice) but you'll always meet some problems which will puzzle you with interesting constraints. This is what Programming Pearls is all about. Study the examples for fun and maybe laugh at them for their simplicity but then remember to applied the strong principles in that book to your daily technical problems (programming related or not).

I'm a computer science student in my second year, and although some of the content was a little over my head being so early into my education, I found this book to be excellent. The problem solving techniques presented in this well written text will benefit me as I pursue my degree, and this book remains relevant. Highly recommend.

More like a collection of tech essays than a readable book, it's not something easy or quick to read through, you'll find yourself going back and forth between questions and solutions. But there's a lot of great tips on programming and algorithms that will be invaluable in tech interviews. In fact I would suggest this book over other "How to beat the tech interview" books.

This book is must read it has many things that you need to know don’t pay attention to comments saying it’s outdated. I found this book very helpful.

La qualità dei contenuti del libro è sicuramente molto alta. Sono semplicemente deluso dal fatto che l'oggetto sia stato spedito cercando di coprire il fatto che questa edizione non possa essere venduta al dì fuori del subcontinente indiano. In copertina c'era del nastro per coprire la scritta nell'angolo mentre sul retro è stato utilizzato un pennarello scuro con cui si è sporcata la copertina. Oltre questo la stampa non è di qualità molto alta.

If you are an intermediate or advanced programmer, read it for it's nostalgic value. To me it feels like a mathematical/ programming novel.If you are a beginner looking for algorithms, skip it. You are better off watching some YouTube videos followed by reading Eva Tardos book on Algorithms.I do not like books which refer to future chapters and this book does it a lot of times. If the reader is in chapter 2, I find it odd if the author refers to chapter 4. Do remember that this was not actually meant to be a book but is a collection of articles put together into what looks like a physical book. So, sometimes it feels like the natural flow is missing (many other books which are intended to be a book also fail in moving from one topic to another smoothly - that is a different story). Still worth the read so that you can have a 10 min conversation over a cup of tea with your girlfriend's grandmother, assuming she retired as a programmer.I bought a new book and I do not think I would read it a second time - it is definitely not the go to book for algorithms. Buy a cheaper used copy than a new one if you want it in your collection. New book is not worth the price.I still will like it in my personal library and am not donating it to anyone.

Wow, there are so many simple tricks and detailed explanations. Will surely make you a better programmer, regardless of experience.

Este libro suele aparecer en listas del tipo "10 mejores libros de programacion" y por muy buenas razones: es realmente una caja de sabiduria y un clasico. Lastima que no se consiga en version digital.