Mathematical Structures for Computer Science: A Modern Treatment of Discrete Mathematics [Hardcover]

Judith L. Gersting (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 19, 2002 | ISBN-10: 0716743582 | ISBN-13: 978-0716743583 | Edition: Fifth Edition

New edition of the classic discrete mathematics text for computer science majors.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

JUDITH L. GERSTING, University of Hawaii, Hilo

Product Details

• Hardcover: 800 pages
• Publisher: W. H. Freeman; Fifth Edition edition (July 19, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0716743582
• ISBN-13: 978-0716743583
• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #815,521 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Lacks good examples and makes learning a chore, October 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Mathematical Structures for Computer Science (Hardcover)

This book will leave you high and dry on many occassions. Gersting explains the obvious in each section with her practice problems and then throws problems that are impossible to do without an extra book at the end of each section. Unless you have a very good professor that notices and makes up for the grey areas in this book, you are in big trouble my friend. Discrete Math is a fun subject, this book makes it a total hassle.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't expect much from this book, February 16, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Mathematical Structures for Computer Science (Mathematical Sciences) (Hardcover)

This book struggles to keep its size manageable, but the effort to do so results in explanations that are unintelligible, incomplete, and often inconsistent, if not outright incorrect. The book's approach is that once a topic has been introduced, there is never any need to provide any back-reference to the subject when it is used again, even if that occurs 4 or 5 chapters later. As a result, the reader spends most of the time looking for obscure paragraphs that appear in a previous chapter, but which are essential to the understanding of the current chapter. Explanations are incomplete. While algorithms are presented (in more-or-less Pascal-ish format) for some concepts, the pseudocode used is not adequate to allow for coding of the solution, and the text accompanying the algorithms does not define many of the variables or processes that are needed to run through the algorithm. In addition, tables and diagrams used in the discourse are separated inconveniently from the text itself, causing the reader to have to turn back or forward a page or two while trying not to lose the train of thought. If required to use this textbook in a class, be ready for significant amounts of frustration unless your instructor is capable of delivering high-quality teaching of the subject, because you probably cannot learn the subject from the book itself. If you are looking for a book for professional use, there are others much better. The time needed to look something up and get a complete and understandable reference is not worth the effort.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Horrible, August 13, 2010

By 

C. Glenn "seeker" (here, now) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mathematical Structures for Computer Science (Hardcover)

I suffered through the first few weeks of my Discrete Mathematics course, and got my first C on an assignment EVER. This immediately sent up red flags. I was struggling to understand the concepts as presented in this book, despite that I have had no problem understanding Algebra, Trgonometry and Calculus. On a hunch that the book might be bad, I checked Amazon, and now you are seeing what I saw: low ratings!

I ordered Susanna Epp's book, and for the remainder of the course I read her coverage of a topic, and used this book only for the class-assigned homework problems. My grades are back to A's. So, it wasn't just me. It was this horrible book. The author just doesn't communicate the topics in a way that can be understood by those new to the subject. There are many cases of terms used without being defined, and concepts being refered to that have not yet been introduced (in other words, out-of-order presentation of topics). Worse than this, the step-by-step examples tend to use only the simplest cases, yet more difficult cases appear in the chapter exercises. In most of the text, the concept is explained, and then the student is asked to apply it (as an exercise) without an example, and expected to flip to the back of the book if they need to see the solution.

If you are stuck with this as I required textbook, I pity you. Get Susanna Epp's book (Or Rosen's) if you'd like to actually learn the topic.