This book is a great compilation of software design problems and solutions. Each chapter is an essay from one author which covers a particular problem in computer science and/or software engineering.
The chapters are complete discussions within themselves and they offer different insights into how to solve problems. The solutions are geared to issues found in both the natural world and the business world.
Of particular interest (for me) were the chapters on seraching and debugging.
One aspect of the book that will be either a plus or a minus depending on the reader is that because each chapter is by a different author, there are many distinct writting styles used. Since I was looking towards the book to gain insight into how others solve these problems, I found this useful. Since some of the context of the thought process came through in the writting, it was more like talking to the authors rather than just reading a textbook.
The chapter vary considerably in both topic and the thought process that went into the solution so inevitably there will be chapters that interest any programmer.
The books chapters can be read in any order and the editor indexes the chapters well. Information is easy to find.
Programming Pearls is of similar composition but with shorter chapters and explanations. This book goes a step further and is the next evolution of the computer science short-story tome.
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