Grokking Algorithms Is Out

Written May 25, 2016

Grokking Algorithms is on Amazon!

Why write another algorithms book?

Grokking algorithms is easier to read:

That’s the section on hash functions in both Introduction to Algorithms and Grokking Algorithms. I’m a visual learner, so my book has 400+ illustrations. Grokking Algorithms is also example-driven, so I give plenty of real-world examples in the book. Here’s how my chapter on breadth-first search starts out:

Suppose you’re in San Francisco, and you want to go from Twin Peaks to the Golden Gate bridge. You want to get there by bus, with the minimum number of transfers. Here are your options:

Here’s how the chapter on graphs in Introduction to Algorithms begins:

We can choose between two standard ways to represent a graph G = (V, E): as a collection of adjacency lists or as an adjacency matrix. Either way applies to both directed and undirected graphs.

Grokking algorithms is also a lot thinner:

It is thin enough that anyone can hope to read it cover-to-cover. It’s perfect for:

• bootcamp grads who want to understand algorithms
• high school students who enjoy programming
• college students who find the standard textbooks hard to understand.
• anyone who wants to know what algorithms are! It really is an easy read – my mom understood binary search after reading the first chapter.

Grokking algorithms was published by Manning Publications. They have been very knowledgeable and professional throughout this process. They even let me upload all the images from the book, and they are available for free for non-commercial use here.

Finally, here are some nice reader comments:

Very cool examples of divide and conquer! Should be included in every functional programming book.

The explanation of Big-O notation itself is worth the price of admission. Big-O usually trips up first-timers to the subject, but the author did an excellent job of explaining the subject lucidly.

I really love this book, and the new chapters and update diagrams really make it shine. Even though I consider myself an experienced developer, I found the updated sections on hashtables, graphs, and greedy algorithms refreshing.

The book reads really easy. You might just grab a book one afternoon and a few hours later realize you’ve read an entire math book in one go!

This is the most approachable book on Algorithms that every high school student taking AP Computer Science or any college student majoring in Computer Science should read.

This is the book I’ve been waiting for to share with both my kids who are interested in programming AND my adult learners attending the various introductory programming meetups I run.

I had a lot of fun writing this book, and I hope you have fun reading it!

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