Classic Computer Science Problems in Python

Table of contents

1. Copyright
   1. Dedication
2. Brief Table of Contents
3. Table of Contents
4. Acknowledgments
5. About this book
   1. Trademarks
   2. Book forum
6. About the author
7. About the cover illustration
8. Introduction
   1. Why Python?
   2. What is a classic computer science problem?
   3. What kinds of problems are in this book?
   4. Who is this book for?
   5. Python versioning, source code repository, and type hints
   6. No graphics, no UI code, just the standard library
   7. Part of a series
9. Chapter 1. Small problems
   1. 1.1. The Fibonacci sequence
   2. 1.2. Trivial compression
   3. 1.3. Unbreakable encryption
   4. 1.4. Calculating pi
   5. 1.5. The Towers of Hanoi
   6. 1.6. Real-world applications
   7. 1.7. Exercises
10. Chapter 2. Search problems
    1. 2.1. DNA search
    2. 2.2. Maze solving
    3. 2.3. Missionaries and cannibals
    4. 2.4. Real-world applications
    5. 2.5. Exercises
11. Chapter 3. Constraint-satisfaction problems
    1. 3.1. Building a constraint-satisfaction problem framework
    2. 3.2. The Australian map-coloring problem
    3. 3.3. The eight queens problem
    4. 3.4. Word search
    5. 3.5. SEND+MORE=MONEY
    6. 3.6. Circuit board layout
    7. 3.7. Real-world applications
    8. 3.8. Exercises
12. Chapter 4. Graph problems
    1. 4.1. A map as a graph
    2. 4.2. Building a graph framework
    3. 4.3. Finding the shortest path
    4. 4.4. Minimizing the cost of building the network
    5. 4.5. Finding shortest paths in a weighted graph
    6. 4.6. Real-world applications
    7. 4.7. Exercises
13. Chapter 5. Genetic algorithms
    1. 5.1. Biological background
    2. 5.2. A generic genetic algorithm
    3. 5.3. A naive test
    4. 5.4. SEND+MORE=MONEY revisited
    5. 5.5. Optimizing list compression
    6. 5.6. Challenges for genetic algorithms
    7. 5.7. Real-world applications
    8. 5.8. Exercises
14. Chapter 6. K-means clustering
    1. 6.1. Preliminaries
    2. 6.2. The k-means clustering algorithm
    3. 6.3. Clustering governors by age and longitude
    4. 6.4. Clustering Michael Jackson albums by length
    5. 6.5. K-means clustering problems and extensions
    6. 6.6. Real-world applications
    7. 6.7. Exercises
15. Chapter 7. Fairly simple neural networks
    1. 7.1. Biological basis?
    2. 7.2. Artificial neural networks
    3. 7.3. Preliminaries
    4. 7.4. Building the network
    5. 7.5. Classification problems
    6. 7.6. Speeding up neural networks
    7. 7.7. Neural network problems and extensions
    8. 7.8. Real-world applications
    9. 7.9. Exercises
16. Chapter 8. Adversarial search
    1. 8.1. Basic board game components
    2. 8.2. Tic-tac-toe
    3. 8.3. Connect Four
    4. 8.4. Minimax improvements beyond alpha-beta pruning
    5. 8.5. Real-world applications
    6. 8.6. Exercises
17. Chapter 9. Miscellaneous problems
    1. 9.1. The knapsack problem
    2. 9.2. The Traveling Salesman Problem
    3. 9.3. Phone number mnemonics
    4. 9.4. Real-world applications
    5. 9.5. Exercises
18. Appendix A. Glossary
19. Appendix B. More resources
    1. B.1 Python
    2. B.2 Algorithms and data structures
    3. B.3 Artificial intelligence
    4. B.4 Functional programming
    5. B.5 Open source projects useful for machine learning
20. Appendix C. A brief introduction to type hints
    1. C.1 What are type hints?
    2. C.2 What do type hints look like?
    3. C.3 Why are type hints useful?
    4. C.4 What are the downsides of type hints?
    5. C.5 Getting more information
21. Index
22. List of Figures
23. List of Tables
24. List of Listings