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Amazon.co.uk Review
The best thing about Master Algorithms in Perl is the scope with which it covers the universe of algorithms, while refraining from getting bogged down in academic detail. Besides providing basic data structures (a lynchpin of books on algorithms), the authors provide dozens of algorithms for sorting, searching and doing mathematical computation of all kinds. While they discuss "Big-O" notation and assume a general familiarity with math, they don't overwhelm the reader. (You can even borrow the code here without a math degree to understand it.) The focus here is on efficient, re-usable Perl subroutines written and compiled by three Perl experts.
Standout chapters include extending Perl's already powerful string processing abilities, game programming and cryptography. Generally, the authors achieve a good mix of advanced and less well-known algorithms, along with the basics. Chances are you won't need to use all the dozen or so sorting algorithms presented here, but the authors include them all, just in case. As a reference and tutorial, readers can pick and choose what they need for real world Perl development.
There hasn't been a book dedicated exclusively to Perl algorithms prior to the publication of this one. In all, Mastering Algorithms in Perl fills a useful niche by compiling a powerful library of Perl algorithms that will be useful for anyone who works with this programming language, whether in business or academic computing. - -Richard Dragan,Amazon.com
Topics covered: Perl data types, Big-O notation, data structures, queues, deques, linked lists, binary trees, sorting and searching algorithms, game and dynamic programming, sets and multisets, matrices, graphs, string matching and parsing, 2-D geometry, number systems, cryptography (including DES and RSA), probability, statistics and numerical analysis. --Amazon.com
Review
In this chapter, we'll discuss how to "think algorithms"-how to design and analyze programs that solve problems. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Well written and easy to read, the authors manage to cut-through some quite complex theory to provide really useful Perl code, and encourage you to think in better ways when designing your own algorithms.
The book begins with basic and advanced data structures. The next series of chapters each address basic programming tasks such as sorting, searching, and working with sets, matrices, graphs, and strings. The final set of chapters is organized by topic area, covering geometric algorithms, number systems, number theory, cryptography, probability, statistics, and numerical analysis. A concluding appendix suggests additional readings.
The format and quality are familiar to readers of other O'Reilly books. It is a good, readable exploration of algorithms implemented in Perl. You will need to get the latest version of Perl on your own. No problems with that, either.
Plus, the code is all in Perl, which is not as unreadable as received wisdom asserts. It's certainly more accessible for the interested Perl-savvy amateur than the pseudocode in Introduction to Algorithms.
Obviously, you're going to have to move onto the likes of Cormen et al, if you're really serious about this stuff. And practically speaking, yes, most of this can be found in CPAN without you having to worry your pretty little head about the mechanics. If just getting something done is your main concern, then this is not the book for you.
Plus, it must be admitted that the level of detail varies across the chapters, and some of the explanations can be opaque, even for the simple stuff. I felt I had to work unnecessarily hard to comprehend some of the material: the discussion of the A* algorithm, some of the tree-related algorithms and the section on compression all suffered from this to varying degrees. This is the sort of book which requires concentration (plus copious scrap paper for scribbling down arrows and boxes) to get anything from.
But to complain that Perl doesn't need you to write these data structures from scratch, and it isn't a suitable language for this sort of thing anyway, is to miss the point of at least part of the book. It's about communicating the intellectual pleasure of wrapping your head around these fundamental bits of computer science, and in that respect it succeeds admirably. If you're looking for an introduction to the area, this is definitely worth getting hold of.
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