Is it just me or are books on algorithms split between being too simplistic and being too detailed to be practical. I read Donald Knuth's book "The Art of Computer Programming Vol.1" read about 10% of it , which is like 3 chapters. I really enjoyed those chapters, Knuth's is such a genius but then the rest of the book was so complicated that the introduction and definition of terms was longer than some whole chapters in the same book. I decided to look for another, found a really good one, but it was analyzing algorithms in Java, sigh, I hardly code in Java so it was exactly easy for me to follow when he keeps mentioning the "comparable" attribute on sorting algorithms. I then got another really followed it till the keep on referencing indicator variables, I had read 3 books now and had not had of these indicator variables. Am sure they are not that common in the Computer Science literature so I was left wondering why I had to learn to analyze code with indicator variables though it was not a standardized in the "Computer Culture" would I be the only one who does this?.. I hence gave up on learning algorithms till I got that book that was just right for me