Algorithms in Java

The objective of this book is to study a broad variety of important and useful algorithms—methods for solving problems that are suited for computer implementation. We shall deal with many different areas of application, always concentrating on fundamental algorithms that are important to know and interesting to study. We shall spend enough time on each algorithm to understand its essential characteristics and to respect its subtleties. Our goal is to learn well enough to be able to use and appreciate a large number of the most important algorithms used on computers today. The strategy that we use for understanding the programs presented in this book is to implement and test them, to experiment with their variants, to discuss their operation on small examples, and to try them out on larger examples similar to what we might encounter in practice. We shall use the Java programming language to describe the algorithms, thus providing useful implementations at the same time. Our programs have a uniform style that is amenable to translation into other modern programming languages as well.