The Stanford GraphBase: A Platform for Combinatorial Computing by Donald E. Knuth

by Donald Ervin Knuth

The Stanford A Platform for Combinatorial Computing represents the first efforts of Donald E. Knuth's preparation for Volume Four of The Art of Computer Programming. The book's first goal is to use examples to demonstrate the art of literate programming. Each example provides a programmatic essay that can be read and enjoyed as readily as it can be interpreted by machines. In these essays/programs, Knuth makes new contributions to several important algorithms and data structures, so the programs are of special interest for their content as well as for their style. The book's second goal is to provide a useful means for comparing combinatorial algorithms and for evaluating methods of combinatorial computing. To this end, Knuth's programs offer standard, freely available sets of data - the Stanford GraphBase - that may be used as benchmarks to test competing methods. The data sets are both interesting in themselves and applicable to a wide variety of problem domains. With objective tests, Knuth hopes to bridge the gap between theoretical computer scientists and programmers who have real problems to solve.As with all of Knuth's writings, this book is appreciated not only for the author's unmatched insight, but also for the fun and the challenge of his work. He illustrates many of the most significant and most beautiful combinatorial algorithms that are presently known and provides sample programs that can lead to hours of amusement. In showing how the Stanford GraphBase can generate an almost inexhaustible supply of challenging problems, some of which may lead to the discovery of new and improved algorithms, Knuth proposes friendly competitions. His own initial entries into such competitions are included in the book, and readers are challenged to do better. Features *Includes new contributions to our understanding of important algorithms and data structures *Provides a standard tool for evaluating combinatorial algorithms *Demonstrates a more readable, more practical style of programming *Challenges readers to surpass his own efficient algorithms 0201542757B04062001

Genres: Programming

Paperback

First published November 30, 1993

About the author

Donald Ervin Knuth, born January 10th 1938, is a renowned computer scientist and Professor Emeritus of the Art of Computer Programming at Stanford University.

Author of the seminal multi-volume work The Art of Computer Programming ("TAOCP"), Knuth has been called the "father" of the analysis of algorithms, contributing to the development of, and systematizing formal mathematical techniques for, the rigorous analysis of the computational complexity of algorithms, and in the process popularizing asymptotic notation.

In addition to fundamental contributions in several branches of theoretical computer science, Knuth is the creator of the TeX computer typesetting system, the related METAFONT font definition language and rendering system, and the Computer Modern family of typefaces.

A prolific writer and scholar, Knuth created the WEB/CWEB computer programming systems designed to encourage and facilitate literate programming, and designed the MMIX instruction set architecture.