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 | | Foundations of Computer Science: C Edition (Principles of Computer Science Series) by Alfred V. Aho, Jeffrey D. Ullman ISBN-10: 9780716782841 ISBN-10: 0-7167-8284-7 ISBN-13: 9780716782841 ISBN-13: 978-0-7167-8284-1 Hardcover 1994-10-15 W. H. Freeman Find Lowest Price |
Reviews | ||
Desert Island Book This is the best all-around foundational book covering Computer Science and Discrete Math; I wish it was used when I was a Computer Science student. I think the bad reviews were written by people who mistook this as an introductory book to CS, it's not. To get anything from this book you should know C well and be mathematically mature. The book provides numerous examples and mathematical background for recursion, iteration, algorithmic efficiency, combinatorics and probability, as well as the major data structures. I think if you take the time to go through this book you'll be well rewarded. | ||
Good Mix of Discrete Math And Programming I'm not sure what the reviewers giving it 1-2 stars are complaining about? Maybe they just don't get it. I've been programming professionally for 8 years and I have yet to see a better book that ties Discrete Math with Computer Science. I think it gives a great example of how Induction and Recursive thinking are linked. I bought this book 3 years ago and I occasionally re-visit it to do all the exercises.... There's a lot but they are good. It's like going to the gym for a good workout but in the context of Computer Science. No, it's not introductory, but if you're having a hard time with Discrete Math and have a solid programming background, are willing to sit down and "Work out" the excercises, then this book is for you. | ||
Excellent book, even for experienced readers Overall, I think this book is an excellent book that anyone serious about computer science should own. I think that this book is good both for those new to computer science and those who have been involved in computer science for several years. For those new to computer science, I would not use this as a first book (this is made clear in the introduction, as well). The expectation is that the reader will already understand the basics of programming, so prior experience or an introductory course in computer science would be appropriate. Many of the examples make use of pointers, which can occasionally be confusing to students unfamiliar with programming, so it would definitely be a good idea for the reader to be familiar with a language like C or Pascal before starting this book. Once that foundation is in place, this is an excellent book to learn the basics of the field of computer science. For more experienced readers, this book serves as an amazing review and does a good job of collecting lots of information in one place. Explanations are solid, so the book can serve as a good reference for multiple topics. Note that the level of detail is not appropriate if you are just interested in one thing -- if you are interested only in details of algorithms, a book like the MIT Press Algorithms book would be more appropriate. | ||
An always useful reference I've used this book for the namesake course at university, 2 years ago. It proved to be perfectly adequate at that time. It was very readable and complete. And this would be enough for me to give it a five stars rate. But there's more. After these two years I've collected many other books in various areas of CS, but when I need a quick reference on any specific topic or I don't remember the formal definition of a concept, I always find this book in my hands. It is one of the references I use most often. It has been my first book by the couple Aho-Ullman. Now I've understood that whenever these two "emeritus guys" writes something, it always worths time and money to read them. | ||
No "Foundation" whatsoever This is a poorly written, poorly designed book. Mathematicians may enjoy having this one on their shelf since they are probably the only ones that would enjoy the arcane, obfuscating language of the material. Since computer science is a practical application of mathematics, it would help to have a book that sets the foundations for newcomers in practical language with practical examples. This book does neither. I cite from page 370: "Suppose a relation R, from domain A to range B, has the property that for every member of A there is at most one element b in B such that aRb. Then R is said to be a partial function from domain A to range B." This is just a small example of the author's droning about set theory. A computer science major would be better served by, "A function cannot produce more than one answer", but nowhere in the text is this practical application mentioned. It's as though the publisher offered the author a bonus for long-windedness and theoretical prattle. This book should be in a graduate seminar on how NOT to write computer science texts. | ||