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Reviewer: Hans J. Schneider

In the eighties, I enjoyed reading Bentley's column in Communications of the ACM, so I am delighted that the book he compiled from his columns [1] is now available again. Even better, this second edition is substantially updated to reflect new trends in programming methods and programming environments. Three changes may characterize the update. First, some topics are new or are discussed in much more detail. These include testing, debugging, and timing. Set representation and string problems have been set in a larger context. Other essays have been extended to reflect new advanced techniques (templates, for example). Finally, the source code of the examples is now available through a Web page. The book is divided into three parts. The first five columns discuss some basic techniques, from precise problem statement to debugging. Columns six through ten consider performance, including not only divide and conquer but quick estimates, code tuning, and squeezing space. The last five sections apply these techniques to some interesting problems and show how problems can be tackled in a variety of ways. Readers are given insight into general-purpose sorting algorithms, generating a sorted sequence of random numbers, some problems in set representation, efficient use of the heap data structure, and some problems that involve searching for strings. A fine feature of this book is that Bentley presents not only the final solutions, but initial and intermediate versions. Each column includes a section summarizing the principles contained in it and a section of problems for readers to solve. One appendix contains hints for solving these proble ms, and another appendix contains the solutions. I recommend this textbook as a supplement in undergraduate courses.