Python Algorithms

Python Algorithms is an introduction to algorithm design and analysis written by Magnus Lie Hetland, an associate professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, for readers with some grounding in Python. The Chinese edition, translated by Ling Jie, Lu Yuchun, and Gu Jun from the 2014 second edition of the English original (Python Algorithms: Mastering Basic Algorithms in the Python Language), was published by Posts & Telecom Press in 2016. The book has 11 chapters and uses Python code as its main illustrative language, presenting algorithm theory, complexity analysis, and runnable implementations together: starting from asymptotics and the representation of graphs and trees, it goes on to discuss solving summations and recurrences, induction and recursive reduction, traversal (BFS/DFS and their variants), divide and conquer (decompose—merge—solve), proving the correctness of greedy algorithms, complex dependencies and memoization in dynamic programming, single-source shortest paths as represented by Dijkstra, matching and cut problems in network flow, and finally NP-hard problems and strategies of "limited dilution" for dealing with them. Each chapter ends with exercises and further reading, and the book closes with hints for the exercises plus appendices on speeding up Python, some famous problems and algorithms, graph theory basics, and exercise hints. The book does not aim to enumerate algorithms exhaustively but emphasizes "how to think about an algorithmic problem" and the cultivation of complexity intuition; it is suitable as a supplementary reference for university algorithm courses and for programmers filling gaps through self-study.