Grokking Algorithms

By: Aditya Bhargava

Narrated by: Derek Lettman

Grokking Algorithms is a friendly guide that teaches you how to apply common algorithms to the practical problems you face every day as a programmer. You'll start with sorting and searching and, as you build up your skills in thinking algorithmically, you'll tackle more complex concerns such as data compression and artificial intelligence. Learning about algorithms doesn't have to be boring!

An algorithm is nothing more than a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem. The algorithms you'll use most often as a programmer have already been discovered, tested, and proven. If you want to understand them but refuse to slog through dense multipage proofs, this is the book for you. This engaging guide makes it easy to learn how to use the most important algorithms effectively in your own programs.

Contents include:

• Introduction to algorithms
• Selection sort
• Recursion
• Quicksort
• Hash tables
• Breadth-first search
• Dijkstra's algorithm
• Greedy algorithms
• Dynamic programming
• K-nearest neighbors

This accessible introduction is suitable for self-taught programmers, engineers, or anyone who wants to brush up on algorithms. Each carefully presented example includes helpful diagrams and fully annotated code samples in Python.

Aditya Bhargava is a software engineer with a dual background in computer science and fine arts. He blogs on programming at adit.io.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2016 Manning Publications (P)2016 Manning Publications

Like computer yoga, or a meditation guide

The content is delivered directly and slowly. If you're completely new to programming, I recommend this book once a month while working on some textbook projects. This is not a comprehensive guide to algorithmic problem solving, nor is it an exploration of implementations. There will be a point when the utility of grokking algorithms diminishes.

I would prefer an audio book form of stepanov and rose, but this is still a welcome addition to my cassette collection.

Sounds like an excellent hard copy

I enjoyed the book and got a fair bit out of it. All visuals were referred to with no explanation, which is the only reason for my lower rating.

With a bit of effort there could have been some explanation of what is being visualized or at least a number for a visualization that I could go find online. Or at least just a mention in the introduction about where to download a PDF.

Bad in audio form

This book is not well fitted for audio as many examples are skipped because they are in code or images.

Too Many Omissions

Too many items are noted as "not included" in the book, which makes this book unnecessary short and anemic in content.

also, the narrator never calls out the figure # for stuff being referenced

Good, but feels very surface-level

I wish there were more books like this. This was well-written and kept my attention. That being said, it’s hard to say how much concrete information I’m walking away with after listening to this.

Great Book

A great book and easy to understand. The author is really breaking down a complex topic into small understandable chunks. A must read for any newbie on algorithms. However, I went back to buy the printed version. I don't recommend having an audiobook to learn algorims. Yes, I mad this mistake but you should not do the same.

Absolutely AMAZING!

Informative and well presented! It is a MUST-READ for anyone willing to acquire a strong foundation in Data Structures & Algorithms

Great introduction to algorithms!

Very pedagogical and interesting book on algorithms! Absolutely loved it. You get a pdf with all the code and pictures, so it’s totally fine as an audio book.

Good book, but terrible as an audio book

This book relies off of illustrations. You can't really see the illustrations if you're listening to it as an audio book. The illustrations are a pretty important part of the book, so it made it difficult to understand. I suggest reading it as a pdf or buying the actual book.

The audio is great. We need the illustrations.

It seems that Audible could take the cover photo, multiply it, and give us the illustrations being referred to.