There are many distinct pleasures associated with computer programming. Craftsmanship has its quiet rewards, the satisfaction that comes from building a useful object and making it work. Excitement arrives with the flash of insight that cracks a previously intractable problem. The spiritual quest for elegance can turn the hacker into an artist. There are pleasures in parsimony, in squeezing the last drop of performance out of clever algorithms and tight coding. | FEXTS IN COMPUTER SCIENCE Programming Challenges The Programming Contest Training Manual Steven S. Skiena Miguel A. Revilla Springer TEXTS IN COMPUTER SCIENCE Editors David Gries Fred B. Schneider Springer New York Berlin Heidelberg Hong Kong London Milan Paris Tokyo This page intentionally left .
