Abstract: This paper provides a personal view of an overall perspective on computational shallow water hydrodynamics, divided into two parts-one dealing with algorithms and the other with applications. The former includes:some difficulties and challenges, requirements, and developments in shallow water flow computations. An emphasis is laid on discussing the underlying principles of finite-volume formulation and some current high-performance schemes. In the latter, a number of computed results are presented which reflect various applications of the finite-volume Osher scheme for Hows in open channels, over weirs, and due to dam-break, overbank and dike-corruplion.