Algorithm Design Techniques: Recursion, Backtracking, Greedy, Divide and Conquer, and Dynamic Programming

Covers pretty much the same topics as other algorithmic / competitive programming exercises such as "Cracking the code interview", "Elements of Programming Interviews" (a masterpiece) or "Guide to Competitive Programming".What probably sets this book aside is that it covers *a lot* of different exercises in increasing level of difficulty. Having read the other three books before I found that at least the dynamic programming section of this one covers a lot of exercises that the others didn't. I still didn't look to the recursive / greedy sections but I assume those will also have plenty of exercises with long and descriptive solutions.

The explanations in this book are inconsistent. In some places explanations are good (Divide and Conquer) and in some places they are lacking or missing altogether (Greedy). Sometimes explanations don't even match the algorithm given. For many problems, the algorithm is given but it is not explained why the algorithm solves the problem or why it is correct. Some explanations use variables and terms that are not defined earlier in the discussion. At times, it feels like the explanation has been copy-pasted from somewhere and is missing some context.The algorithm given for merge-sort is wrong. I was surprised to see that the author has implemented merge sort without using an auxiliary array and claimed that the space complexity is O(log n). I was doubtful the given algorithm would work so I typed it out and ran it. It throws index out of range error. Wrong implementation and complexity analysis of merge sort in an algorithms book hurts the credibility of the book.The good thing about this book is that it covers a lot of problems (more than CTCI). I like the organization of chapters based on algorithm techniques rather than data structures. Because it uses Python, the code given in the book is quite compact. I really wanted this to be my favorite interview prep book but unfortunately I can't call it so.

I looked at the Amazon book preview and bought the book because I needed to practice DP, Backtracking etc for my upcoming onsite interviews.The content of the book seems good but when I received the book, the print quality for the price (This is priced higher than Cracking the Coding Interview, which is used commonly for tech interview prep) is extremely bad i.e. small and light colored font. Also code snippets with a slate gray background are fine for PDF's but very hard to read in a printed book.The screenshots highlight the difference in print quality. The one with the slate gray background for the code snippet (above "4.14 Fundamentals of graphs" section) is from this book. Notice how thin the figures on the right are even when taken from a camera. The other two pictures are from "Introduction to Algorithms" (EEE), and "Cracking the Coding Interview".I have reached out to the author using the careermonk website to check whether an electronic version is available but haven't received any response. Unfortunately, I wouldn't be able to use the book for my preparation in time and will be returning it.

I've been chugging along through this book to learn about different algorithm techniques and problems associated with those algorithm techniques.As I've been reading through each problem, there have been some good and some bad things that I've encountered.Some of the space and time complexities are incorrect or the algorithms aren't correct. But of the most part, a wide variety of problems are introduced along with solutions.I think this book is really helpful to get a better idea of how to tackle certain problems.

The quality of the print is ver poor. The font is very small to read. The book is definitely not original print

As in topic. The book is bad, its chaotic, difficult to read. Contains a lot of errors, explains how to solve problems in wrong way.

This book is useful for competitive programming.Not good for academic purpose.But you should be knowing basics of python or any other programming language.

An amazing piece of work, I have bought his coding interview questions book, but it's mostly Data structures with little algorithm design. This book completes that first book of his series. Hundred of problems are covered, the approach to solutions are fantastic, he starts with naive, brute force, then the algorithm design technique that's mentioned in the chapter.I highly recommend that book, I'm looking forward for the Author to making a video course about algorithms!.

Written systematically with lucid explanation. But publisher should have increase text font size.

The book is great.