p.8 EDITORIAL
[author : Jonathan Erickson] #Edito
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FEATURES
p.20 DR. DOBB'S EXCELLENCE IN PROGRAMMING AWARD
[author : Jonathan Erickson]
Through his research and writings, Jon Bentley has made significant contributions to the art and science of computer programming. And he's the recipient of this year's Dr. Dobb's Excellence in Programming Award.
p.23 A NEW ROAD MAP OF ALGORITHM DESIGN TECHNIQUES
[author : Anany Levitin]
Before outlining a new taxonomy, Anany reviews the four most general algorithm design techniques: brute force, divide-and-conquer, decrease-and-conquer, and transform-and-conquer.
p.34 MONTE CARLO METHODS
[author : Matthew Ginsberg]
Bridge is one of a handful of classic games that have thus far eluded competent computer play. However, GIB, the Bridge program Matthew wrote and discusses here, proves to be a worthy competitor.
p.38 THE FASTEST SORTING ALGORITHM?
[author : Stefan Nilsson]
Which sorting algorithm is the fastest? Stefan presents his answer to this age-old question.
p.46 GARBAGE COLLECTION ON THE RUN
[author : Joshua W. Burton]
Joshua examines several incremental memory-management algorithms, including simple user-defined reference counts, before turning to analyzing the global connectedness of pointer structures.
p.54 AN EFFICIENT ALGORITHM FOR MAGNITUDE OPERATION
[author : S. Manivannan]
Magnitude operation is widely used in signal and data processing for signal detection and power estimation in systems such as real-time displays for sensors, radars, sonars, and scanners for medical-imaging systems.
p.58 THE BLUETOOTH SPEC: PART II
[author : James Y. Wilson and Jason A. Kronz]
Bluetooth technology is an open specification for wireless communication. In Part I, Jim and Jason examined the voluminous specification. This month, they focus on the features of the Baseband specification.
EMBEDDED SYSTEMS
p.66 DIGITAL FILTERING AND OVERSAMPLING
[author : Jim Ledin]
Compared to analog filtering, digital filtering can provide higher overall system performance and reduce circuit complexity. Jim examines the technique of oversampling, which can be used to gain these seemingly contradictory benefits.
INTERNET PROGRAMMING
p.76 LORE: A DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR XML
[author : Roy Goldman, Jason McHugh, and Jennifer Widom]
Lore is a DBMS designed specifically for XML. In the same way that SQL queries relational DBMSs, Lore provides the query language Lorel for issuing expressive queries over XML data.
PROGRAMMER'S TOOLCHEST
p.82 EXAMINING THE PYGTK TOOLKIT
[author : Mitch Chapman and Brian Kelley]
PyGtk brings the benefits of a high-level programming language to Gtk+ developers, and gives Python programmers access to a modern, high-performance GUI toolkit.
COLUMNS
p.91 PROGRAMMING PARADIGMS
[author : Michael Swaine]
Michael ain't misbehavin' as much as he's misinformin'. Of course, that's not his fault.
p.97 C PROGRAMMING
[author : Al Stevens]
Ramblin' Jack Elliot has nothing on Al this month, as our man in C rambles from one topic to another.
p.101 JAVA Q&A
[author : David Epstein, Joseph Kiniry, and John Motil]
JJ is a Java implementation originally designed as an educational programming language and environment. Although it's a subset of Java, JJ includes advanced programming features such as support for Design by Contract.
p.111 ALGORITHM ALLEY
[author : Jon Bentley]
Caching often works well, but sometimes fails utterly. In this column, Jon examines why that happens and what you can do about it.
p.119 DR. ECCO'S OMNIHEURIST CORNER
[author : Dennis E. Shasha]
There's bad blood around Ecco's flat, as the good doctor and his sidekick Liane lend a hand to medical science.
p.127 PROGRAMMER'S BOOKSHELF
[author : Jeffrey L. Taylor]
Jeffrey examines the second editions of Radia Perlman's Interconnections: Bridges, Routers, Switches, and Internetworking Protocols, and Bruce Powel-Douglass' Real-Time UML: Developing Efficient Objects for Embedded Systems.
FORUM
p.10 LETTERS
[author : you]
p.18 NEWS & VIEWS
[author : edited by Nicholas Baran]
p.134 OF INTEREST
[author : Nicholas Baran and Amy Lincicum]
p.136 SWAINE'S FLAMES
[author : Michael Swaine]