Algorithms, by Jeff Erickson

Jeff Erickson was my algorithms professor in 2012. He exemplifies the articulate, passionate educator that I wish I had for my other CS subjects. I recognize many of these notes having read them many times in preparation for quite difficult exams - a fun anecdote shared among people who've taken the class is the 25% credit given on any exam question just for writing "I don't know", effectively a reward for acknowledging your own shortcoming and for saving the TA…

Not proving solutions to textbooks seems to be a common theme in mathematics and theoretical computer science. It makes it difficult for those outside of the traditional classroom to learn the material. Instead textbook writers seem to have this adversarial approach against readers, thinking they’ll “cheat themselves” if they look up solutions or attempt to verify their work. Experts make mistakes, beginners would presumably make even more mistakes. Without a feedback mechanism beginners can’t truly know whether…

Same link got 238 comments 7 months ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18805624

I took Jeff's senior level Algorithms class at UIUC back in 2002. His lecture notes are really high quality and presented in a very engaging style. Definitely worth checking out! He also gave some very difficult homework problems. UIUC lore has one student noping out in a pretty amusing way: http://jeffe.cs.illinois.edu/teaching/pikachu.html