Art of Computer Programming, The, Volumes 1-4B, Boxed Set: Fundamental Algorithms / Seminumerical Algorithms / Sorting and Searching / Combinatorial ... Part 2 (Art of Computer Programming, 1-4)

I have always wanted to have these books, and it was only the fact that when the new box set (1-4B) was on Amazon at a *very* good price that I could justify buying it! I won't say what the price was when I pre-ordered, but it was a *lot* cheaper than the £200+ currently being charged!I was at University studying for my Computer Science Degree in the late 80s, and this was a reference book that myself and my fellow CS Undergraduates referred to very often - it was a reference book that could only be used within the library itself, it couldn't be removed!Be warned - as you can see from the images I've included, a certain level of mathematics and programming knowledge is required.I've included the complete algorithm for a Quicksort, and at the end you can see the start of the MIX program for this algorithm. MIX is Knuth's hypothetical computer, with the language used being a machine language.As noted in Vol 1, MIX is considered out of date, and a new version (MMIX, MIX 2009) has been developed, and will be used in the next edition of volumes 1-3 (Vols 4a and 4b already use MMIX).Volume 1: "Fundamental Algorithms"(originally published in 1968, updated and revised 3rd edition 1997- Mathematical Preliminaries- MIX- Information Structures (Lists, Trees, Multilinked Structures, Dynamic Storage Allocations)Volume 2: "Seminumerical Algorithms"(originally published in 1969, updated and revised 3rd edition 1998)- Random Numbers- Arithmetic (Positional Number Systems, Floating Point Arithmetic, Multiple-Precision Arithmetic, Radix Conversion, Rational Arithmetic, Polynomial Arithmetic, Manipulation of Power Series)Volume 3: "Sorting and Searching"(originally published in 1973, updated and revised 2nd edition 1998)- Sorting (Combinatorial Properties of Permutations, Internal Sorting, Optimum Sorting, External Sorting)- Searching (Sequential Searching, Searching by Comparison of Keys, Digital Searching, Hashing, Retrieval on Secondary Keys)Volume 4a: "Combinatorial Algorithms Part 1"(originally published in 2011, first edition)- Combinatorial Serarching (Zeros and Ones, Generating All Possibilities)Volume 4b: "Combinatorial Algorithms Part 2"(new publication, first edition 2023)- Mathematical Preliminaries Redux- Combinatorial Searching (Generating All Possibilities continued - backtrack programming and satisfiability)If you are a programmer, this is the go-to work for algorithms!Forthcoming in the next few years (hopefully) are:- Volumes 4C, 4D: Combinatorial Algorithms ( Generating all possibilities (continued), Shortest paths, Graph algorithms, Graphs and optimization, Independence theory, Independence structures, Efficient matroid algorithms, Discrete dynamic programming, Branch-and-bound techniques, Herculean tasks (aka NP-hard problems), Near-optimization), Recursion [This will complete Knuth's "Core" work]The remaining Volumes are planned for, and form specialist areas, so not part of the "Core" work:- Volume 5 – Syntactic Algorithms (Lexical scanning (includes also string search and data compression), Parsing techniques)- Volume 6 – The Theory of Context-free Languages- Volume 7 – Compiler Techniques

Expensive set of books but will keep me busy for the rest of my life. It amazes me that one guy wrote all this.

Exceptionally well written distilled necessary theory, practical examples, applications and exercises.

After the book on Concrete Mathematics, don't get me Yaleous, but Stanford's textbooks stand for elegance of time. And many owners like me will enjoy the set the next year. All the best.