What do topics ranging from organic chemistry to Napoleon's campaigns have to do with computer programming? This collection of essays demonstrates the many varied aspects of programming, showing how programming can be both a fun and elegant science. Some of the essays cover programming techniques, like how profilers can provide insight into the dynamic behavior of programs, and methods for making data files self-describing. These techniques deal with real programs and they are realistically illustrated, using the C and Awk languages. Bentley also provides the reader with some tricks of the programmer's trade, like a collection of rules of thumb and hints for finding simple solutions to hard problems. These essays also originally appeared in the author's column in Communication of the ACM, and have been substantially revised, incorporating new sections, problems, and reader comments. 0201118890B04062001

Jon Bentley 世界著名计算机科学家，被誉为影响算法发展的十位大师之一。他先后任职于卡内基-梅隆大学（1976~1982）、贝尔实验室（1982~2001）和Avaya实验室（2001年至今）。在卡内基-梅隆大学担任教授期间，他培养了包括Tcl语言设计者John Ousterhout、Java语言设计者James Gosling、《算法导论》作者之一Charles Leiserson在内的许多计算机科学大家。2004年荣获Dr.Dobb's程序设计卓越奖。