Customer Reviews

Introduction to the Theory of Error-Correcting Codes, 3rd Edition

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The "Introduction" in the title should be replaced with "A Revision .." The explanations are concise, and not much examples given. Without any prior background, it is difficult to grasp the point of each paragraph.

The theory of error correcting codes is a foray into number theory. It can be very abstract. And this might be the problem that some readers will have with the book. The discussion involves finite field theory and key ideas like permutations. All this is necessary to understand the topic.

But for students lacking a strong theoretical background in maths, getting to hands on manipulations and getting a strong intuitive understanding of the codes can be difficult. Each chapter does have an extended exercise set. Which is good. But the exercises themselves are also quite abstract.

I had to buy this book for my upper division (discrete) math course, and I must say this book is not the best introductory text.

I don't know if there's a better one as my professor professed out of this one rather extensively.

Luckily I had a good professor, so the book wasn't as bad compared to if I had just read this book by itself (and I'm a math major, I can read a math book in a week and understand it!).

It has a relatively "condensed" writing style, even for a math book. There is little discussion as to why I should care about why a code should be treated as a linear subspace of (Z/2Z)^n. There is, come to think of it, little discussion *period*.

I wouldn't recommend buying it unless you had to for a course.