iv
programming in a high-level language such as Pascal, and perhaps another
course which teaches fundamental concepts of programming systems. In short,
students should be conversant with a modern programming language and
have a comfortable understanding of the basic features of modern computer
systems. There is some mathematical material which requires knowledge of
calculus, but this is isolated within a few chapters and could be skipped.
There is a great deal of flexibility in the way that the material in the
book can be taught. To a large extent, the individual chapters in the book
can each be read independently of the others. The material can be adapted
for use for various courses by selecting perhaps thirty of the forty chapters.
An elementary course on “data structures and algorithms” might omit some
of the mathematical algorithms and some of the advanced graph algorithms
and other advanced topics, then emphasize the ways in which various data
structures are used in the implementation. An intermediate course on “design
and analysis of algorithms” might omit some of the more practically-oriented
sections, then emphasize the identification and study of the ways in which
good algorithms achieve good asymptotic performance. A course on “software
tools” might omit the mathematical and advanced algorithmic material, then
emphasize means by which the implementations given here can be integrated
for use into large programs or systems. Some supplementary material might be
required for each of these examples to reflect their particular orientation (on
elementary data structures for “data structures and algorithms,” on math-
ematical analysis for “design and analysis of algorithms,” and on software
engineering techniques for “software tools”); in this book, the emphasis is on
the algorithms themselves.
At Brown University, we’ve used preliminary versions of this book in our
third course in computer science, which is prerequisite to all later courses.
Typically, about one-hundred students take the course, perhaps half of whom
are majors. Our experience has been that the breadth of coverage of material
in this book provides an “introduction to computer science” for our majors
which can later be expanded upon in later courses on analysis of algorithms,
systems programming and theoretical computer science, while at the same
time providing all the students with a large set of techniques that they can
immediately put to good use.
The programming language used throughout the book is Pascal. The
advantage of using Pascal is that it is widely available and widely known;
the disadvantage is that it lacks many features needed by sophisticated algo-
rithms. The programs are easily translatable to other modern programming
languages, since relatively few Pascal constructs are used. Some of the pro-
grams can be simplified by using more advanced language features (some not
available in Pascal), but this is true less often than one might think. A goal of
this book is to present the algorithms in as simple and direct form as possible.
