'Algorithmics' presents the most important, concepts, methods and results that are fundamental to the science of computing. It starts by introducing the basic ideas of algorithms, including their structures and methods of data manipulation. It demonstrates how to design accurate and efficient algorithms, and discusses their inherent limitations.

PrefaceAcknowledgments PART I. PRELIMINARIES 1. Introduction And Historical Review or, What's It All About? 2. Algorithms And Data or, Getting It Done 3. Programming Languages and Paradigmsor, Getting It Done by Computer PART II. METHODS AND ANALYSIS 4. Algorithmic Methods or, Getting It Done Methodically 5. The Correctness of Algorithms or, Getting It Done Right 6. The Efficiency of Algorithms or, Getting It Done Cheaply PART III. LIMITATIONS AND ROBUSTNESS 7. Inefficiency and Intractability or, You Can't Always Get It Done Cheaply 8. Noncomputability and Undecidability or, Sometimes You Can't Get It Done At All! 9. Algorithmic Universality and Its Robustness or, The Simplest Machines That Get It Done PART IV. RELAXING THE RULES 10. Parallelism, Concurrency and Alternative Modelsor, Getting Lots Of Stuff Done at Once11. Probabilistic Algorithms or, Getting It Done by Tossing Coins 12. Cryptography and Reliable Interactionor, Getting It Done in Secret PART V. THE BIGGER PICTURE13. Software Engineeringor, Getting It Done When It's Large14. Reactive Systemsor, Getting It to Behave Properly Over Time15. Algorithmics And Intelligence or, Are They Better at It Than Us? PostscriptSelected SolutionsBibliographic NotesIndex

From a review of the first edition: ‘This book is a veritable tour de force. Harel writes with uncommon verve, clarity and imagination.' ‘Through the use of tantalizing questions and aptly chosen and often amusing examples, the author transmits to the reader the excitement and intellectual satisfaction of computer science research. Without the use of formal mathematics and without any sacrifice of intellectual integrity, he conveys to the general reader the profound principles on which computer science is founded and which hitherto were only accessible in abstruse and esoteric textbooks and papers.' ‘This is scientific writing at its best.' Dr Stan Scott, Queen's University Belfast. The Times Higher Education Supplement. This book tells the story of the concepts, ideas, methods and results fundamental to computer science, in a form independent of the details of specific computers, languages and formalisms. It concerns the true 'spirit' of computers; with the 'recipes' that make them tick - their algorithms. New to this edition Chapters on software engineering and on reactive systems. Thoroughly revised chapter on programming languages. New material on quantum and molecular computing. Whole text thoroughly updated to include new material on many topics, including abstract data types, the object-oriented paradigm, primality testing, and system verification and validation. David Harel is Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science at the Weizmann Institute of Science. He is renowned for outstanding research in many areas of the field, and has recently been awarded the Israel Prize in Computer Science.Yishai Feldman is on the faculty of the Efi Arazi School of Computer Science at the Interdisciplinary Centre, Herzliya. He specializes in the use of atificial-intelligence techniques in software engineering and its real-world applications.

Whole text thoroughly updated to include material on the object-oriented paradigm, such as classes and instances, inheritance and abstract data types Contains two new chapters; one discussing modern and exciting approaches to computation, such as quantum and molecular computing, genetic algorithms and neural networks, the second covering system development and software engineering Chapter 3 (Programming Languages) has been updated with referneces to Pascal, Snobol, and APL being replaced by discussion of C++ and Java.