![]() This was the required textbook for my university's introductory discrete mathematics course. This book is NOT appropriate for your average computer science student with no prior discrete math! To any instructors considering this book, just don't! You'll be spending extra office hours having to explain what the book glossed over and your students will hate you for making them use this terrible book. This book seems to be geared towards other math teachers and mathematicians who already know the subject and might need a refresher. ![]() Many of the problems ask you to prove concepts when they have not given you the tools to do so. Also the homework problems have ridiculous sub-questions, so really doing 10 problems is more like 70 when each question has parts a) - g). Examples, when present, are usually pretty basic while the homework presents much more complex situations the simple examples in the book do not prepare you how to solve. The book is very light on graphs and figures, often left with nothing more than an equation or set you are left to draw yourself (if you even understand how to!). Complex concepts are glossed over in just a few sentences, half a page if you're lucky. For the $90 it cost me, you'd think they could fill it with examples and useful clear explanations, but instead they chose to shrink the book down into as little paper as possible and pocket the extra profits. This book is truly awful, downright useless. This book was required for my Discrete Math course, unfortunately. In fact, the second half of the book could serve as a starter text for our course in graph theory. Therefore, while the book is not suitable for my needs, it would be a perfect fit for anyone teaching discrete mathematics where there was an emphasis on graph theory. Our department recently added a course in graph theory, so we only need to touch on the basics of graphs in discrete mathematics. In our class we do cover some graph theory, but prefer to spend less time on it than this book would allow. However, I will not be adopting it because of the large amount of graph theory, which is approximately forty percent of the book. There are some proofs, but nothing that is beyond the motivated freshman/sophomore who is receiving the appropriate direction. ![]() This book covers these fundamentals at exactly the level of rigor that I need. Coverage of fundamental topics such as propositional logic, sets, relations and functions basic combinatorics and induction are a requirement. Therefore, any book that I use must demonstrate mathematical proofs, but not at too high a level. ![]() It also provides the mathematical foundation for all of the later computer science courses. The course that I teach is required and early in the computer science major. As a teacher of discrete mathematics, I must constantly scan new books in the never-ending search for the best one with appropriate content and level. ![]()
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