Takes a gentle approach to learning data structures using the Java programming language. Providing an early, self-contained review of object-oriented programming and Java, this text gives readers a firm grasp of key concepts and allows those experienced in another language to adjust easily. It has a solid foundation in building and using abstract data types, along with an assortment of advanced topics such as B-trees for project building and graph. It incorporates Java 5.0 including the use of scanner class and generic data types (generics). MARKET : This book is if for anyone interested in learning how to write effective data structures using the Java language.
This book was left for free at my university and I used it for my data structures course. My index for judging a book like is what I've started calling the "K&R (kernighan and ritchie) index". Not a judge of absolute quality, in some pretentious way, but moreover: how much material do they serve to be in a succinct way that allows me to learn topics on my own. I felt like as the material grew in complexity, the ability of the author to explain it succinctly diminished greatly. I was really rewarded in the first few chapters of the book but quickly put it down when we got to trees.
I think Main’s approach was pretty good for the first half of the book or so, but I think the explanations concerning B-trees could’ve been a lot better.
Not bad for an introduction to data structures. Decent course material, with mostly solid explanations. Some of them were too thick, some too trivial, but for the most part it was easy to follow without being too vacuous. There are probably better data structures books, even with Java examples, but the multitude of Computer Science students who will undoubtedly get this book assigned will learn much without too much pain.