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Dive Into Algorithms: A Pythonic Adventure for the Intrepid Beginner
A fun yet thorough Python-based introduction to algorithms, which are sets of instructions that allow a computer to solve problems. The book tackles classic algorithms like searching, sorting, and optimization as well as those used in fields like machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Dive Into Algorithms is a thorough introduction to algorithms, which are sets of instructions that allow a computer to solve a problem and are key to the success of many of today's computer applications. Readers learn about many standard computer science algorithms including ones for searching, sorting, and optimization as well as newer ones used in machine learning and artificial intelligence. Readers also learn how to understand "real life" algorithms like how a baseball outfielder uses an algorithm to determine where to run to field a ball; how computers can beat humans at games like chess; how a chatbot can understand and respond to human speech; and how algorithms have been used throughout history. Readers need little more than high school math to understand an algorithm and the Python code needed to implement the algorithm -- all of which is introduced line-by-line in order to make the code as understandable as possible.
Dive Into Algorithms is a thorough introduction to algorithms, which are sets of instructions that allow a computer to solve a problem and are key to the success of many of today's computer applications. Readers learn about many standard computer science algorithms including ones for searching, sorting, and optimization as well as newer ones used in machine learning and artificial intelligence. Readers also learn how to understand "real life" algorithms like how a baseball outfielder uses an algorithm to determine where to run to field a ball; how computers can beat humans at games like chess; how a chatbot can understand and respond to human speech; and how algorithms have been used throughout history. Readers need little more than high school math to understand an algorithm and the Python code needed to implement the algorithm -- all of which is introduced line-by-line in order to make the code as understandable as possible.
248 pages, Paperback
First published August 25, 2020
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195 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 21, 2021
Review of Dive Into Algorithms
By Ian Mizer
This book was given to me for free by No Starch Press, but the thoughts expressed here are my own
This is book is based entirely on learning math, but it does a really good job of changing how it’s learned. Instead of trying to give you a dry math lecture, this book will tell a story with each of it’s chapters. This story based education ties real world problems and solutions with the algorithms that this book is trying to teach. Starting you off with Japanese and Russian algorithms used by older scholars and peasants and moving into more modern algorithms that are used in every day Python. If these kinds of things interest you then lets jump in to Dive Into Algorithms
Ok, are they gone? I think I got rid of all the people who will only look at the highlight sentences. So now I’m going to sit down and go through all the actual pieces of this book and explain my system. I rated this book on 3 main subjects:
Readability: How easy is this book to read and how quickly could a person finish the whole book
Accuracy: how accurate is the book? How many errors does it make in the code or text?
Subject: Does this book do what the cover or back says it does? Is what the book wants to teach you good?
Bonus Points: This is just for outside resources that the book points to directly. I might also add some places where you can find more education from the author such as informative twitter threads or medium articles that the author offers for free.
Readability: 8/10
Dive Into Algorithms took me 14 days to read at about 10-20 pages per day. This book does an amazing job at increasing its own readability with the usage of stories to inform the reader. I found myself falling into entire chapters without realizing it and that gets major points from me. The book loses this readability in the later chapters when it reaches more advanced topics, but this is to be expected. The author could improve the readability by changing the page layouts for each chapter or changing the way that he displays the code and math. Making these small changes could increase the readability to 10/10 for me, but they are difficult to do without losing the reader in the presentation.
Accuracy: 10/10
There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with the code that I could find and, other than very minor typos, I couldn’t find anything wrong in the print.
Subject: 7/10
This book is looking for a very specific audience and, while it will last a long time, it doesn’t have a lot of industry standard algorithms to learn. Bradford Tuckfield (the author) admits this openly in the book and attempts to lead the reader towards other avenues and understandings if they want to take their knowledge further. If you’re a comp sci major or you’re looking to improve your math skills then this book is great and you could easily teach a class on it. If you’re a python user who is just trying to learn about machine learning then this book will be good as a 3rd, 4th, or 5th book in your journey to learning ML.
Bonus Points:
+1 to the author admitting this book doesn’t do everything:
I’ve read a lot of books that try to be the end all be all in a certain subject. Bradford Tuckfield admits freely within the book that informing you about everything in algorithms isn’t the point. He wants to give you enough knowledge to get your foot in the door and understand the conversation. I love this and it’s why I throw him a kudos here
+2 for a math researcher and economist writing a good book:
This is not Bradford Tuckfields first book and it is certainly not his first time writing. This author has done what I know other scholars aren’t doing and making amazing attempts at improving his writing in difficult subjects so that other people will read it. If you have ever gone over any of the research papers from the youtube channel 2 minute papers then you know that this is very rarely the case. Because of this I’m throwing a kudos to Mr. Tuckfield and I recommend you guys check out his website at https://bradfordtuckfield.com/ to see any upcoming books from this author (Like one that may be coming soon from No Starch Press)
By Ian Mizer
This book was given to me for free by No Starch Press, but the thoughts expressed here are my own
This is book is based entirely on learning math, but it does a really good job of changing how it’s learned. Instead of trying to give you a dry math lecture, this book will tell a story with each of it’s chapters. This story based education ties real world problems and solutions with the algorithms that this book is trying to teach. Starting you off with Japanese and Russian algorithms used by older scholars and peasants and moving into more modern algorithms that are used in every day Python. If these kinds of things interest you then lets jump in to Dive Into Algorithms
Ok, are they gone? I think I got rid of all the people who will only look at the highlight sentences. So now I’m going to sit down and go through all the actual pieces of this book and explain my system. I rated this book on 3 main subjects:
Readability: How easy is this book to read and how quickly could a person finish the whole book
Accuracy: how accurate is the book? How many errors does it make in the code or text?
Subject: Does this book do what the cover or back says it does? Is what the book wants to teach you good?
Bonus Points: This is just for outside resources that the book points to directly. I might also add some places where you can find more education from the author such as informative twitter threads or medium articles that the author offers for free.
Readability: 8/10
Dive Into Algorithms took me 14 days to read at about 10-20 pages per day. This book does an amazing job at increasing its own readability with the usage of stories to inform the reader. I found myself falling into entire chapters without realizing it and that gets major points from me. The book loses this readability in the later chapters when it reaches more advanced topics, but this is to be expected. The author could improve the readability by changing the page layouts for each chapter or changing the way that he displays the code and math. Making these small changes could increase the readability to 10/10 for me, but they are difficult to do without losing the reader in the presentation.
Accuracy: 10/10
There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with the code that I could find and, other than very minor typos, I couldn’t find anything wrong in the print.
Subject: 7/10
This book is looking for a very specific audience and, while it will last a long time, it doesn’t have a lot of industry standard algorithms to learn. Bradford Tuckfield (the author) admits this openly in the book and attempts to lead the reader towards other avenues and understandings if they want to take their knowledge further. If you’re a comp sci major or you’re looking to improve your math skills then this book is great and you could easily teach a class on it. If you’re a python user who is just trying to learn about machine learning then this book will be good as a 3rd, 4th, or 5th book in your journey to learning ML.
Bonus Points:
+1 to the author admitting this book doesn’t do everything:
I’ve read a lot of books that try to be the end all be all in a certain subject. Bradford Tuckfield admits freely within the book that informing you about everything in algorithms isn’t the point. He wants to give you enough knowledge to get your foot in the door and understand the conversation. I love this and it’s why I throw him a kudos here
+2 for a math researcher and economist writing a good book:
This is not Bradford Tuckfields first book and it is certainly not his first time writing. This author has done what I know other scholars aren’t doing and making amazing attempts at improving his writing in difficult subjects so that other people will read it. If you have ever gone over any of the research papers from the youtube channel 2 minute papers then you know that this is very rarely the case. Because of this I’m throwing a kudos to Mr. Tuckfield and I recommend you guys check out his website at https://bradfordtuckfield.com/ to see any upcoming books from this author (Like one that may be coming soon from No Starch Press)
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March 28, 2024Good book for improve knowledge of Python
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 7, 2022
I love algorithms!
This book was amazing - a perfect combination of algorithms and Python.
I coded alongside this book and created many coding examples in my GitHub repository!
4.8/5
This book was amazing - a perfect combination of algorithms and Python.
I coded alongside this book and created many coding examples in my GitHub repository!
4.8/5
October 20, 2022
Good overview of algorithms. A bit non-technical and simplified, lots of extraneous detail but it makes it a fun read.
September 13, 2022
I found the title of this book to be a little misleading. Dive Into Algorithm does not offer much insight into the common algorithms you might see in a job interview, academic curriculum, or featured on LeetCode. Instead, the author uses the term "algorithm" to colloquially refer to any computer program designed to solve a problem. In this way, this book does not offer much more than other project-based Python books. I did enjoy the chapter on sorting and searching and wish there was more content like this. Finally, as a data scientist, I enjoyed seeing the details of decision trees - but again - not really what I was hoping for from this title. I'm hoping Algorithmic Thinking provides more of the information that I'm looking for.
September 20, 2024
A great book, but abit hard for me to understand. My favorite author.
September 27, 2024
a great book that makes one wonder more about the world and how it operates. algorithms are everywhere and it is essential to know about them. every chapter was engaging and well-crafted.
it would be nice if the book contained some practice or application exercises!
it would be nice if the book contained some practice or application exercises!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews