Programming Puzzles

Learning programming with one of “the coolest applications around”: algorithmic puzzles ranging from scheduling selfie time to verifying the six degrees of separation hypothesis. This book builds a bridge between the recreational world of algorithmic puzzles (puzzles that can be solved by algorithms) and the pragmatic world of computer programming, teaching readers to program while solving puzzles. Few introductory students want to program for programming's sake. Puzzles are real-world applications that are attention grabbing, intriguing, and easy to describe. Each lesson starts with the description of a puzzle. After a failed attempt or two at solving the puzzle, the reader arrives at an Aha! moment—a search strategy, data structure, or mathematical fact—and the solution presents itself. The solution to the puzzle becomes the specification of the code to be written. Readers will thus know what the code is supposed to do before seeing the code itself. This represents a pedagogical philosophy that decouples understanding the functionality of the code from understanding programming language syntax and semantics. Python syntax and semantics required to understand the code are explained as needed for each puzzle. Readers need only the rudimentary grasp of programming concepts that can be obtained from introductory or AP computer science classes in high school. The book includes more than twenty puzzles and more than seventy programming exercises that vary in difficulty. Many of the puzzles are well known and have appeared in publications and on websites in many variations. They range from scheduling selfie time with celebrities to solving Sudoku problems in seconds to verifying the six degrees of separation hypothesis. The code for selected puzzle solutions is downloadable from the book's website; the code for all puzzle solutions is available to instructors.

There are many distinct pleasures associated with computer programming. Craftsmanship has its quiet rewards, the satisfaction that comes from building a useful object and making it work. Excitement arrives with the flash of insight that cracks a previously intractable problem. The spiritual quest for elegance can turn the hacker into an artist. There are pleasures in parsimony, in squeezing the last drop of performance out of clever algorithms and tight coding. The games, puzzles, and challenges of problems from international programming competitions are a great way to experience these pleasures while improving your algorithmic and coding skills. This book contains over 100 problems that have appeared in previous programming contests, along with discussions of the theory and ideas necessary to attack them. Instant online grading for all of these problems is available from two WWW robot judging sites. Combining this book with a judge gives an exciting new way to challenge and improve your programming skills. This book can be used for self-study, for teaching innovative courses in algorithms and programming, and in training for international competition. The problems in this book have been selected from over 1,000 programming problems at the Universidad de Valladolid online judge. The judge has ruled on well over one million submissions from 27,000 registered users around the world to date. We have taken only the best of the best, the most fun, exciting, and interesting problems available.

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!

"Programming Puzzles" by Matthew Whiteside offers an engaging collection of challenge and fun puzzles designed to sharpen your problem-solving skills and enhance your programming expertise Key Features A diverse range of puzzles to suit different skill levels Hints and solutions to facilitate learning and understanding Comprehensive explanations that deepen programming knowledge Book Description"Programming Puzzles" is a meticulously crafted collection designed to elevate your coding skills through engaging and challenging exercises. The book begins with a helpful guide on getting started, ensuring that readers are well-prepared to tackle the puzzles ahead. As you delve deeper, you'll encounter a series of challenge puzzles that test your logical thinking and problem-solving abilities, followed by fun puzzles that offer a more relaxed yet equally rewarding experience. Hints are provided for the challenge puzzles to guide you through particularly tough spots, ensuring you stay motivated without giving away the solutions. Once you've worked through the puzzles, comprehensive solutions are provided, allowing you to understand different approaches and learn from your mistakes. Each section of the book is designed to progressively build your skills, from basic logic to advanced problem-solving techniques, making it an invaluable resource for anyone looking to improve their programming abilities. The journey through this book is not just about finding solutions; it's about developing a deeper understanding of how to approach and solve complex problems. By the end of this book, you'll have honed your coding skills, enhanced your logical thinking, and gained a new appreciation for the art of problem-solving in programming.What you will learn Develop logical thinking and problem-solving skills Apply programming concepts to solve challenging puzzles Enhance coding proficiency through practical exercises Gain insight into different approaches to problem-solving Understand the logic behind complex programming solutions Improve debugging skills with detailed solution explanations Who this book is for The ideal audience for "Programming Puzzles" includes software developers, data scientists, computer science students, coding bootcamp graduates, and anyone preparing for technical interviews. This book is perfect for individuals looking to enhance their problem-solving and coding skills through a variety of engaging and challenging puzzles. A basic understanding of programming concepts and familiarity with the programming language are recommended prerequisites to fully benefit from the exercises and solutions provided.

If you are preparing the programming interview for a software engineer position, you might want to look at this book. Make sure you have basic knowledge of data structure and algorithm, because this book is mostly focus on how to resolve the coding puzzles with existing data structure and algorithm. If you need some refresh of data structure and algorithm, there is a good book you might want to take a look first, by Thomas H. Cormen. What the 2nd edition brings to you: 1.136 problems in Recursion, Divid and Conquer, Binary Search, Tree Traversal, Graph Traversal, Dynamic Programming, String Search etc, which is more than enough for preparing a software engineer interview. Every puzzle contains a detailed explanation and some implementations. 2.An Appendix in the end of this book for designing question preparation. This appendix includes some selected papers, books I had read in the past two years. And I think this is the most important change in the second edition. Learning what current industry does and keeping improving the design skill will help yourself in a long-term career. Again, this book is used to present how to analysis a problem and link the inside the challenge with some existing algrithoms. The goal of this book is to improve the problem solving ability, not to be a collection of latest interview questions from Facebook, Google etc. Hope this book can help you get your desired offer.

Algorithmic puzzles are puzzles involving well-defined procedures for solving problems. This book will provide an enjoyable and accessible introduction to algorithmic puzzles that will develop the reader's algorithmic thinking. The first part of this book is a tutorial on algorithm design strategies and analysis techniques. Algorithm design strategies — exhaustive search, backtracking, divide-and-conquer and a few others — are general approaches to designing step-by-step instructions for solving problems. Analysis techniques are methods for investigating such procedures to answer questions about the ultimate result of the procedure or how many steps are executed before the procedure stops. The discussion is an elementary level, with puzzle examples, and requires neither programming nor mathematics beyond a secondary school level. Thus, the tutorial provides a gentle and entertaining introduction to main ideas in high-level algorithmic problem solving. The second and main part of the book contains 150 puzzles, from centuries-old classics to newcomers often asked during job interviews at computing, engineering, and financial companies. The puzzles are divided into three groups by their difficulty levels. The first fifty puzzles in the Easier Puzzles section require only middle school mathematics. The sixty puzzle of average difficulty and forty harder puzzles require just high school mathematics plus a few topics such as binary numbers and simple recurrences, which are reviewed in the tutorial. All the puzzles are provided with hints, detailed solutions, and brief comments. The comments deal with the puzzle origins and design or analysis techniques used in the solution. The book should be of interest to puzzle lovers, students and teachers of algorithm courses, and persons expecting to be given puzzles during job interviews.

When you write software, you need to be at the top of your game. Great programmers practice to keep their skills sharp. Get sharp and stay sharp with more than fifty practice exercises rooted in real-world scenarios. If you're a new programmer, these challenges will help you learn what you need to break into the field, and if you're a seasoned pro, you can use these exercises to learn that hot new language for your next gig. One of the best ways to learn a programming language is to use it to solve problems. That's what this book is all about. Instead of questions rooted in theory, this book presents problems you'll encounter in everyday software development. These problems are designed for people learning their first programming language, and they also provide a learning path for experienced developers to learn a new language quickly. Start with simple input and output programs. Do some currency conversion and figure out how many months it takes to pay off a credit card. Calculate blood alcohol content and determine if it's safe to drive. Replace words in files and filter records, and use web services to display the weather, store data, and show how many people are in space right now. At the end you'll tackle a few larger programs that will help you bring everything together. Each problem includes constraints and challenges to push you further, but it's up to you to come up with the solutions. And next year, when you want to learn a new programming language or style of programming (perhaps OOP vs. functional), you can work through this book again, using new approaches to solve familiar problems. What You Need: You need access to a computer, a programming language reference, and the programming language you want to use.

Learning programming with one of “the coolest applications around”: algorithmic puzzles ranging from scheduling selfie time to verifying the six degrees of separation hypothesis. This book builds a bridge between the recreational world of algorithmic puzzles (puzzles that can be solved by algorithms) and the pragmatic world of computer programming, teaching readers to program while solving puzzles. Few introductory students want to program for programming's sake. Puzzles are real-world applications that are attention grabbing, intriguing, and easy to describe. Each lesson starts with the description of a puzzle. After a failed attempt or two at solving the puzzle, the reader arrives at an Aha! moment—a search strategy, data structure, or mathematical fact—and the solution presents itself. The solution to the puzzle becomes the specification of the code to be written. Readers will thus know what the code is supposed to do before seeing the code itself. This represents a pedagogical philosophy that decouples understanding the functionality of the code from understanding programming language syntax and semantics. Python syntax and semantics required to understand the code are explained as needed for each puzzle. Readers need only the rudimentary grasp of programming concepts that can be obtained from introductory or AP computer science classes in high school. The book includes more than twenty puzzles and more than seventy programming exercises that vary in difficulty. Many of the puzzles are well known and have appeared in publications and on websites in many variations. They range from scheduling selfie time with celebrities to solving Sudoku problems in seconds to verifying the six degrees of separation hypothesis. The code for selected puzzle solutions is downloadable from the book's website; the code for all puzzle solutions is available to instructors.