Slowly and gradually, algorithm is being critically important as the amount of data which programmers encounter everyday has increased exponentially.
Unfortunately, although I have learnt many data structures and algorithms in Java, seldom have I used them in my program because I merely know how to write algorithms but don't really appreciate what they are and why they are crucial to an application when a programmer is faced with enormous amount of data. Whereas, after reading the introduction about algorithm in "Algorithms in C", the author explained what algorithms are in plain English words, which help me know why I should learn them.
As a matter of fact, it is critically important to find a good teacher, a book or a course which can make complicated problems easy to understand. This book is definitely one of them.
It is not efficient only to learn algorithms but not to use. As time passes by, presumably I will forget them. Thus, I am adopting algorithms and data structure when I am faced with problems; all the examples are collected in the directory: algorithms-examples.