Algorithms Simplified

An algorithm is just a very patient, very precise recipe. If you can follow a recipe, you can learn algorithms.

Volume 2 of Algorithms Simplified explores the structures that hold data in a line and the hashing that finds it in a single step. You will see arrays, dynamic arrays, strings, linked lists, stacks, queues, circular buffers and deques, each drawn as the real thing: memory cells, train carriages, a returns trolley, a round table. Then come hash tables, collisions and load factors, cuckoo, Robin Hood and perfect hashing, sets and maps, and the array techniques that power fast programs: two pointers, fast and slow pointers, sliding windows, prefix sums, grid flood fill and LRU caches.

- Every structure compared on the same tasks, with costs you can measure
- Worked problems, exercises with solutions, practice, challenge and thinking problems
- Optional formal proofs, including why cuckoo hashing works

Who it is for: self-learners, university students, working professionals and curious readers. No programming is needed to follow the ideas: every algorithm is told as a story, drawn as a picture and written in plain pseudocode. Readers who want to run the ideas will find tested Python for every algorithm in the free companion code.

Built for working alongside AI coding assistants: knowing the algorithms lets you ask an assistant for the right method, state the cases and the cost you need, spot an answer that is wrong or too slow, and test it before you trust it. The assistant writes the code faster; this book helps you design it well.