Free Introduction To The Theory Of Computation Ebooks Online
Gain a clear understanding of even the most complex, highly theoretical computational theory topics in the approachable presentation found only in the market-leading INTRODUCTION TO THE THEORY OF COMPUTATION, 3E. The number one choice for today's computational theory course, this revision continues the book's well-know, approachable style with timely revisions, additional practice, and more memorable examples in key areas. A new first-of-its-kind theoretical treatment of deterministic context-free languages is ideal for a better understanding of parsing and LR(k) grammars. You gain a solid understanding of the fundamental mathematical properties of computer hardware, software, and applications with a blend of practical and philosophical coverage and mathematical treatments, including advanced theorems and proofs. INTRODUCTION TO THE THEORY OF COMPUTATION, 3E's comprehensive coverage makes this a valuable reference for your continued studies in theoretical computing.
Hardcover: 480 pages
Publisher: Cengage Learning; 3 edition (June 27, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 113318779X
ISBN-13: 978-1133187790
Product Dimensions: 1 x 6.5 x 9.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #25,496 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #5 in Books > Computers & Technology > Computer Science > AI & Machine Learning > Machine Theory #283 in Books > Textbooks > Computer Science
The price of this book is exorbitant, especially for as horribly condensed as it is.Simply put, this book feel as if the author's main goal is to cover the material in as few pages as possible.This is a very complex subject matter, and it's very obvious that the author knows his stuff inside and out. There's no doubt about that. However, the entire book feels as if it is written for a mathematical peer instead of to a student. Meaning, if you didn't get it the first time, you're out of luck. He explains things one time and one time only and then from then on treats the reader as if they're masters of the material. This can be extremely tedious and frustrating if something doesn't make sense. The author will utterly leave you in the dust.Secondly, everything is in paragraph form. Examples and mathematical proofs are condensed into paragraphs to save as much space as possible instead of laid out in a way that's easy to interpret and understand. Chugging through the examples is a real chore since they're just one big block of text.The book also skips every instance of explanation that it can. Examples treat the reader as if everything is clear as day when it's really not. For example, if he's explaining topic X, he'll use explanation A, B, and C to explain it without any regard to the idea that A, B, and C aren't as clear as he thinks it is. If A, B, and C aren't clear to you, X isn't going to make any sense.The book suffers greatly from lack of clarity and it's very obvious the author has never heard the term, "show, don't tell". It would be a much better book if the author took more time to explain in more detail. Give examples of what he's talking about.
Given the fact that this is considered one of the "standard" reference books, I was surprisingly unimpressed with this book.There are a number of complaints I have about this book:1. Its price is just obscene - the fact that they would charge that much for a book that a lot of people are forced to purchase is just wrong on the face of it.2. The lousy price is especially irritating given what you get for it. Fact is, even at a much lower price this textbook would be a bad value. At a mere 480 pages, this is not an especially long textbook; not sure how the publisher can possibly justify charging an above-average price for a shorter-than-average textbook. There's really nothing I can think of that would justify this book's price tag; it's not like they add some fabulous feature (software package, etc.) that makes this book worth the extra money. I suppose it's more of a "they charge it because they can" type scenario.3. Not only is it overpriced, it's not even particularly well written. Quite bluntly, the book's relatively short because it doesn't explain anything.With regards to the third point, I completely agree with the other reviewer who commented that this book is written as if you already understood the material; this is exactly what he does. I had to consult other textbooks all the time in order to be able to solve the book's problems because I found the author's explanations inadequate. It's almost like the author had a minimum word count and he was struggling to meet it ("OK, just 10 more pages to go before I can release it").On the plus side, the problem sets are, for the most part, decently selected if you have decent reference material to help you with them (e.g.
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