1 Introduction
This chapter covers
- What this book is about and its structure
- What makes this book different than other books on algorithms
- How massive datasets shape the design of algorithms and data structures
- How this book can help you design practical algorithms at a workplace
- Fundamentals of computer and system architecture that make massive data challenging for today’s systems
Having picked up this book, you might be wondering what the algorithms and data structures for massive datasets are, and what makes them different than “normal” algorithms you might have encountered thus far? Does the title of this book imply that the classical algorithms (e.g., binary search, merge sort, quicksort, depth-first search, breadth-first search and many other fundamental algorithms) as well as canonical data structures (e.g., arrays, matrices, hash tables, binary search trees, heaps) were built exclusively for small datasets? And if so, why no one has told you that.