Acknowledgments

From John Canning and Alan Broder

Robert Lafore’s Java-based version of this book has been a mainstay in Data Structures courses and professionals’ reference shelves around the world for many years. When Alan’s Data Structures course at Stern College for Women of Yeshiva University moved on to Python, the inability to use Lafore’s book in the course was a real loss. We’re thus especially happy to bring this new and revised edition to the world of Python programmers and students.

We’d like to thank the many students at Stern who contributed to this book either directly or indirectly over the past several years. Initial Python versions of Lafore’s Java implementations were central to Alan’s Python-based courses, and Stern student feedback helped improve the code’s clarity, enhanced its performance, and sometimes even identified and fixed bugs!

For their valuable feedback and recommendations on early drafts of this new edition, we are grateful to many students in Alan’s Data Structures courses, including Estee Brooks, Adina Bruce, Julia Chase, Hanna Fischer, Limor Kohanim, Elisheva Kohn, Shira Orlian, Shira Pahmer, Jennie Peled, Alexandra Roffe, Avigail Royzenberg, Batia Segal, Penina Waghalter, and Esther Werblowsky. Our apologies if we’ve omitted anyone’s name.

An open-source package of data structure visualizations is available to enhance your study of this book, and Stern students played an active role in the development of the visualization software. John and Alan extend many thanks to the Stern student pioneers and leaders of this project, including Ilana Radinsky, Elana Apfelbaum, Ayliana Teitelbaum, and Lily Polonetsky, as well as the following past and present Stern student contributors and mentors: Zoe Abboudi, Ayelet Aharon, Lara Amar, Natania Birnbaum, Adina Bruce, Chani Dubin, Sarah Engel, Sarah Graff, Avigayil Helman, Michal Kaufman, Sarina Kofman, Rachel Leiser, Talia Leitner, Shani Lewis, Rina Melincoff, Atara Neugroschl, Shira Pahmer, Miriam Rabinovich, Etta Rapp, Shira Sassoon, Shira Schneider, Mazal Schoenwald, Shira Smith, Riva Tropp, Alexandra Volchek, and Esther Werblowsky. Also, many thanks to the Stern faculty who mentored student participants: Professor Ari Shamash, Professor Lawrence Teitelman, and Professor Joshua Waxman. Our apologies if we have left anyone off this list.

Many thanks go to Professor David Matuszek of the University of Pennsylvania for his early contributions of ideas and PowerPoint slides when Alan first started teaching Data Structures at Stern. Many of the slides available in the Instructors Resources section have their origin in his clear and well-designed slides. Also, we are grateful to Professor Marian Gidea of the Department of Mathematics of Yeshiva University for his insights into spherical trigonometry.

Finally, we owe a great debt to the talented editors at Pearson who made this book a reality: Mark Taber, Kim Spenceley, Mandie Frank, Chuti Prasertsith, and Chris Zahn. Without their many talents and patient help, this project would just be an odd collection of text files, drawings, and source code.