Looking for a path to learn the math required to understand algorithm books / theory [closed]

Closed. This question is off-topic. It is not currently accepting answers.

---

Want to improve this question? Update the question so it's on-topic for Stack Overflow.

Closed 9 years ago.

开发者_开发问答 Improve this question

I've taken everything up to pre-calculus in college, but when trying to get through things like the Donald Knuth books, or even things like this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-balancing_binary_search_tree I wind up looking at math that means absolutely nothing to me. I'm not looking for magic, I don't expect to make sense of this in a week, I'm just looking for a good graduated plan of things to read / explore to get me there. Any pointers are welcome, after 20+ years as a professional programmer, I feel it would be nice to have this under my belt. Thanks in advance to everyone! :-)

---

I actually recommend taking a discrete mathematics course at your local university. This helped me out tremendously. Until I had this, I did not understand recursion (which is based on mathematical induction.) There are a number of other concepts which you will learn in a good discrete mathematics course which are extremely, extremely helpful (graph theory, asymptotic notation, combinatorics...)

I also recommend taking the class for a grade. I have always noticed that this makes people take the course more seriously, even if it is not in line with a degree path or anything past the grade.

If your local university is good, they will likely have tutoring sessions and office hours available that you can go to in order to ask questions and get clarification. These are really, really valuable and helped me learn things in a deeper manner, and more quickly, than I ever could have on my own.

You may need to take calculus in order to meet the prerequisites, but that is something I would also recommend if you'd like to increase your mathematical literacy. This 'answer' will take at least a semester, and more like two, but I think this is the way to go. It's not an immediate solution, but you will become better at math if you perform well in these two classes (and you have a good university close by.)

Your profile says you are in Dallas. I found this course (with no prerequisites!) for you. The syllabus looks like it covered a lot of good material, and the course met at 5:30 p.m. (good for working people!). If they are offering anything similar next semester, I'd consider it. If you call up the instructor, I'm sure he'd be happy to talk with you about what he knows for summer and fall scheduling.

This path has worked well for me.

Good luck!

---

You can try this: http://www.amazon.com/Concrete-Mathematics-Foundation-Computer-Science/dp/0201558025

There's a pdf version of this available online, you can easily google it out.

Many of my friends who are great programmers recommended it.

---

A lot of talented programmers understand algorithms before understanding the maths behind them. Maths are only there to help, they are not here to make you understand everything. You will need to spend more time reading about algorithms and complexity, then you might get a sense of how to evaluate them.

I recommend you to read more books about algorithm complexities.

---

In your long experience as a professional programmer, there surely are topics and sub-domains that you are most curious about. My advice is: identify those areas and go after them. It might be code-breaking, number theory, recursion, functional programming, computational origami, logical puzzles, crystal structures, graphs, genetic algorithms, splines...

Take your own remark to heart:

but when trying to get through things like the Donald Knuth books, or even things like this link:...I wind up looking at math that means absolutely nothing to me

What sort of math fascinates you?

I could say there are lots of intriguing puzzles at Project Euler. After you solve a programming challenge, you have access to a forum in which other folks share their solutions and occasionally refer to some body of knowledge they were drawing on. I love it. But what matters is what you like. Your own interests are the key to your learning.

If math and programming no longer have any appeal--you don't like doing them in your spare time--find something else to get into: acting, foreign languages, travel, French cooking, biking. Who knows, maybe you're burned out.

---

I'd say get a good book in discrete math and one in combinatorics as well. Here are a few I've liked. The Rosen book is good place to start.

• http://www.amazon.com/Course-Combinatorics-J-van-Lint/dp/0521006015
• http://www.amazon.com/Discrete-Mathematics-Applications-Kenneth-Rosen/dp/0073229725/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1305304408&sr=1-2
• http://www.amazon.com/Introductory-Combinatorics-5th-Richard-Brualdi/dp/0136020402/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1305304434&sr=1-7

---

In line with what Vincent said, I recommend Algorithms in a Nutshell from O'Reilly (here).

---

There is a plenty of good video-lectures on Discrete Math, Calculus and Applied Math. Just watch them every evening, make notes and try to solve simple problems. To prepare yourself for Knuth, try "Discrete Mathematics". To understand deeply what is math and how all things in the universe are interconnected (including algorithms), try "Joy of Mathematics".

---

I was looking for just the same thing. I couldn't afford any of the material suggested here so far so here's a link to a YouTube lecture series on Discrete Mathematics. I wish there was a playlist but unfortunately there is not.

The videos are taken uploaded from http://www.aduni.org who ask for a donation of 25c per video to cover operation costs.