A Common-Sense Guide to Data Structures and Algorithms, Second Edition

The first edition of this book was the first thing I worked on for Pragmatic, and I was pretty proud of it. It sold quite nicely, so a second edition was a no-brainer after a few years. Of course, data structures hadn’t changed any, but with any topic, there’s always more to say, enhancements to the pedagogy, improvements to make. As I was the editor on the first one, I had right of first refusal to this one, and happily accepted, because I love working with Jay. Even though I left Pragmatic shortly after we started, I thought this would be a good one to keep, because Jay is a great author, and second editions are usually easier than starting from scratch. In the end, we added an awful lot to the book, probably more than I anticipated. However, the changes we made took a good book and made it into a great one. The are a ton of images in this book, like the first edition, and that boosts the page count considerably. This was one of those times when I could clearly see the author improve over time, and that’s a great experience.