Summary of all the MIT Introduction to Algorithms lectures (2009)

catonmat.net

158 points·addisonc··9 comments

This was one of the earliest introductions to algorithms which I could understand. Thank you Peter (and MIT OCW) for diligently cataloging the notes, you've no idea how much you helped me to get an understanding of algorithms. Thanks again.

Apart from this his awk,sed and perl oneliners are worth to act as a reference as well.

His article about bit manipulation is very nice, as well. https://catonmat.net/low-level-bit-hacks

Hackers Delight is a pretty fun book on low level algorithms. Lots of little tidbits like how to convert a divide by a constant into a multiple by a different constants and a shift. Thought these days the compilers are good enough to do the same thing but now when you look at the resulting assembly you can figure out how they are doing that.

Even if compilers are usually good enough, people (mostly in the market making/HFT space) are still doing this kind of stuff. For example, division (and to a lesser extent, multiplication) is still avoided/hacked around in the fast path for these kinds of strategies.

That's a good call-out. It's natural for me, but I do see people struggle with bit manipulation regularly. A comprehensive, yet plain language intro, with simple examples, is really useful.

You can tell this was developed after extensive interactions with undergrads. It's really well done.

done.

and done well. Over the kind of coffee that matters. Nice job.

See https://graphics.stanford.edu/~seander/bithacks.html

Thanks so much! This arrived at exactly the right time for me.

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