Aimed at both working programmers who are applying for a job where puzzles are an integral part of the interview, as well as techies who just love a good puzzle, this book offers a cache of exciting puzzles
Features a new series of puzzles, never before published, called elimination puzzles that have a pedagogical aim of helping the reader solve an entire class of Sudoku-like puzzles
Provides the tools to solve the puzzles by hand and computer
The first part of each chapter presents a puzzle; the second part shows readers how to solve several classes of puzzles algorithmically; the third part asks the reader to solve a mystery involving codes, puzzles, and geography
Comes with a unique bonus: if readers actually solve the mystery, they have a chance to win a prize, which will be promoted on wrox.com!

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 6 reviews)

Food for the brain, highly recommended!

I have always enjoyed Prof. Shasha`s mathematical puzzle column for Dr. Dobb's Journal. So when I stumbled across this book, I was pleasantly surprised.

Overall, I really liked the puzzles in this book. The descriptions of the puzzles are generally not too long (usually a page or two) and the warm-up exercises and its solutions really give you a feel of what to expect ahead. You can easily spent 5-10 minutes reading a puzzle, doing the warm-up exercise, see its solutions and tried to solve the real puzzle the rest of the day, maybe even weeks. But beware that some of the problems are pretty hard. They just seem "impossible" to me.

I agree with some of the readers here that sometimes the language can be a bit vague (e.g. the puzzle "Whipping Ice", I really wasn't sure what the problem is asking until I see at least the solutions to warm-up). Since the book is written for programmers alike, I guess they are written more as puzzles as opposed to mathematics problems that some of the readers may have hoped.

I would imagine how difficult it would be if I were to take the author's "Heuristic Problem Solving" class. Can't imagine the amount of work there is but how fun it can be!

November 10, 2008

Great Puzzles

Terrific set of puzzles for IT. We use them as weekly contests, and most have just the right balance between "can't figure out in your head" and "impossible and massively time consuming" for an office environment. Highly recommended!
July 31, 2008

Did not like the language of the book

The puzzle descriptions lack clarity of definitions. In many cases I spent more time trying to understand the description of the problem, then finding the solution. Provided solutions also lack mathematical precision. If I could, I would return this book.
July 05, 2008

Pratical examples of algorithm in action

Before reading this book, I actually did not know how to use the dynamic programming algorithm in practice. This books taught me in one page from "Sweet Packs" puzzle. The solution is so simple and elegance that I can still remember it almost a year later. I was surprised to see how an ordinary problem can be solved with an old algorithm from a different perspective.
This book is unique. Unlike other puzzle book, it's dedicated for programmers. And I think doing puzzle from time to time may help improve brain function. Some of the problems can be hard. If you want some simple puzzles for interview, you may also try this book "How would you move mount Fuji? - Microsoft's cult of puzzle".

May 29, 2008

Good book for brain teasing and interview

The book presents a number of puzzles, of different difficult level, with proposed solutions. In general, the puzzles are not very hard to solve if you follow the hint/guide by the author, and can be done in reasonable time. It is a good practice if you are going through a number of interviews for technical positions. It can also serve as a spare time reading for those doing research in algorithm engineering.

The language of the book is a bit descriptive, not as formal and precise as I expected. This is a personal preference and I know some folks love this type of language. Given the price and content, I would give it 4 stars.
May 28, 2008

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