Preface

This book contains information about the Judy technology, a programming innovation from Hewlett-Packard that combines scalability and ease-of-use with a significant performance advantage in many data-intensive applications. The information in this book is designed for experienced programmers who have knowledge of at least one major programming language (preferably C, C++, or Java) and want to explore Judy's ability to replace existing data structures, such as arrays, sparse arrays, hash tables, B-trees, binary trees, linear lists, skip lists, sort and search algorithms, and counting functions with a much more scalable solution.

This book does not attempt to document all situations in which Judy can be used effectively or to analyze all of Judy's performance nuances compared with more traditional data structures. The Judy technology is new and many of its potential uses are open-ended and undiscovered. Therefore, this book can serve an introduction to Judy and an invitation to the programming community to adapt Judy's unique technology to new applications. This book is divided into these sections: