Customer Reviews

Structure and Interpretation of Signals and Systems

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This book is a terrible book. I found the book extremely frustrating to read and troublesome to use. When I first learned about signals and systems and used this book as a learning guide, I had a terrible time trying to understand the book. Some of the exercises even disagree with the books definition, and after taking an advanced systems and signals courses, I realized that the book is full of errors. For example, its definition of a memoryless system is completely wrong.

I've also tutored students who are using this book at UC Berkeley as the main class textbook. They have a difficult time understanding the book as well. If you want a good introduction to Signals and Systems, get "Signals and Systems" by Haykin and Van Veen instead of this book. That book does a much better job covering the topic and goes more in depth to cover advanced topics such as wavelets and z-transforms.

I totally agree with the previous reviewer. This book is very confusing and full of errors, although it tries to be an introductory book on the topic. Try books from Oppenheim, if you really want to master signals and systems.

When reading this book I felt a strange suspicion that the authors intent was to confuse the student by withholding greatly needed details needed to explain this topic. This book is written in such a convoluted way that seems to be more aimed at readers who buy "Be and Expert in 24 Hours!" books.

Even more, I had to use this book while taking the corresponding class taught by one of the authors. I does not help the student a bit to read the book, be confused and then go to lecture only to have the professor/author regurgitate the same material with same examples!

This is the first time I've ever written an online review, I felt compelled to steer people away from this book!

I used this book in my undergraduate S&S class. We used both the book and the labs that go along with it. While the labs were decent, the book was almost one of the most frustrating "technical" books I have ever read. For example, the handling of the ABCD matrix form and subsequent segway into the Impulse Response was horrible (chapter 5).

It leaves out key points when describing ideas. You simply cannot follow along with some of the concepts presented when explanations are incomplete. One of the most annoying things about the book is that key points, that you must understand to get any further, are "left as an exercise for the reader". In addition, the book makes points by saying "Its completely obvious..." or "It can be easily shown that..." and then not really explaining anything because, apparently, the solution is so obvious.

Compounding the problem(s) is that the worked problems in the book are not fully worked. They work a little bit of it, and then explain away the rest of the solution with a sentence (or two). So if your the least bit confused there is no way find out what it is you really dont understand. This might be excusable if the chapter problems had some answers in the back of the book, or in a supplemental manual, but that is not the case.

I would think that, for someone who already understands the material, this book would seem quite nice. But to somebody who is new to the material, this book is an absolute nightmare. To any would-be teachers reading this and considering using it, beware, your students will have a horrible time with this book and will not understand what they need to in an introductory course, and they will hate you to boot.

I feel quite bad for the CE/EE students at Berkeley as Im sure they always get stuck with this book.

I had the luxury of taking this course when it was taught by one of the authors, and I still found the book extremely difficult. Some of the concepts of the book are certainly captivating as it teaches you stuff ranging from sound manipulation to how graphics programs manipulate images, but the material is condensed and extremely hard to pick up. There were moments where I had to re-read chapters three or four times just to get a basic understanding of what is going on. Many of the sections simply throw mathematical equations at you and skip a lot of the fundamental steps when deriving theorems or making connections. I ended up finishing the course with only a superficial understanding of the material because some of the content was extremely hard to understand. If you buy this book, be prepared to spend a good amount of time re-reading a lot of the chapters. IMHO, this is not the ideal book for an introductory Signals course - it is far too complex.

This book is one of the worst textbooks I have ever used. The text of the book is hard to follow and some of the some of the examples it uses are not technological relevant. While the book does explain a few concepts well, most of the more difficult ones are explained in a verbose and incoherent manner. The problems at the end of each chapter are probably the most helpful part of the book because most of the solutions are right (the solutions aren't included with the book, you need the solution manual). Overall, the book made me more confused on the entire topic of signals and systems. In fact, I didn't open the book after the first week of class because it was so useless.

This book is beyond bad. The notation is by far the worst. I have never seen such a messy way of describing domains and ranges or signals as what is used in this book. It honestly doesn't even make sense to me or anyone else I know that's seen this book.

The examples are impossible to follow due to the notation that is used and it simply adds more frustration to anyone trying to learn signals and systems. I guess you can tell my main problem is with this ridiculous notation but the book also just fails to be a learning tool. Most of the time you spend trying to figure out what the author was trying to say rather than learning about signals and systems.

If you're a student and this book is required for your class, try to do without it and find something else, because this book sure won't help.

This book is an extended version of the tutorial course given by the authors at UC Berkeley. It is a very well designed introduction into the most significant areas of the topic as seen by modern researchers and engineers.
The book provides a broad view of the subject and allows to feel the flavor of applications. It gives an overview of typical engineering problems involving signals and systems and indicates essential mathematical techniques for modeling them. Using these tools the authors present a coherent theory as a basis for engineering design.
The book is written in clear language thus making the subject, which is not simple, easy to understand. It is perfectly suitable for an inquisitive freshman who is willing to master the material by going through numerous examples and exercises. There is also a website, which provides access to additional tutorials, labs, interactive examples and useful links.
The scope of the book is such that there is hardly anything to add or delete, although, I believe it would certainly benefit from adding "further reading" sections at the end of each chapter.
Although, I am not a freshman but an engineer, I love this book, because it helped me to feel the joy of dealing with signals and systems and gave me a broader vision of the subject.

This book is an extended version of the tutorial course given by the authors at UC Berkeley. It is a very well designed introduction into the most significant areas of the topic as seen by modern researchers and engineers.
The book provides a broad view of the subject and allows to feel the flavor of applications. It gives an overview of typical engineering problems involving signals and systems and indicates essential mathematical techniques for modeling them. Using these tools the authors present a coherent theory as a basis for engineering design.
The book is written in clear language thus making the subject, which is not simple, easy to understand. It is perfectly suitable for an inquisitive freshman who is willing to master the material by going through numerous examples and exercises. There is also a website, which provides access to additional tutorials, labs, interactive examples and useful links.
The scope of the book is such that there is hardly anything to add or delete, although, I believe it would certainly benefit from adding "further reading" sections at the end of each chapter.
Although, I am not a freshman but an engineer, I love this book, because it helped me to feel the joy of dealing with signals and systems and gave me a broader vision of the subject.