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Rating: 
Summary: Math lover's choice
Review: Comments on a Mathematic book can be very divergent. This book is a good example, some people rate it 5 stars and other rated 1 star. (My humble opinions is that this is normally a sign that this is a good Math book).The book is very Mathematically rigorous, growing up the big tree step by step. It has no "friendly approaches" in its explaination but clean and dry proofs. I think this is what Mathematics book supposed to be. If you like Math you should like this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Lacks educational value
Review: During the course this book has been anything but helpful. The introductory part is a laugh as it takes for given you as a reader is very deep into mathematical lingo and proofs. Indeed the poofs are some of the worst written, many of them using statements as "Clearly it is..." and "It is now easy to see...", well, no, it isn't easy and mostly seems like a shortcut from the author to excuse himself from actual explanations. Even worse is the examples where solutions reference something form an excercise, here's a hint to Mr Martin, students don't solve all the extremly many excercises unless asked to, so saying something will be clear after a certain excercise doesn't work, how will we ever know if we're right or wrong? The educational value is very low due to the authors way of writing, never really getting the point across and always assuming the reader knows exactly what's going on. This is certainly not the way to teach people rather complex things. All in all anyone should look elsewhere to have a chance.
Rating:
Summary: do NOT buy this book as an introductory text!
Review: i am currently enrolled in a course for which this is the required text and have found this book to be all but totally useless. this is the first semester the text is being used and the professor has already decided to switch textbooks for the next semester. i am placing an order for michael sipser's textbook in hopes that i can still salvage my grade in this course. in summary, this book is a waste of paper, both literary- and money-wise. i hope this insight is useful to other undergrad students who are in the same situation.
Rating:
Summary: Breadth Of Information
Review: I normally don't write reviews. Couple of not very positive reviews could not stop me writing one for this title. In my opinion, this book really presents a breadth of information
on the subject. If one is considering to buy this book, one should have due background in Discrete Mathematics.
Rating:
Summary: Terrible book
Review: I read this book during my preparation for a comprehensive exam, which includes materials about theory of computation. I was bad at theory all the time, but reading this book removes all my confusions. It looks like lots of math at first glance, but all the theorems explained clearly after the declarations. This book is also very helpful to understand the fundamental theory for programming languages. I recommend this book for all new graduate students of computer science.
Rating:
Summary: A Rigorous Introduction
Review: I've had the privilege of taking Prof. Martin's two-semester course from this text here at NDSU, and it has been quite enjoyable. The text provides a solid description and set of proofs for the more mathematically-minded students (such as myself). I think that the problem that many other reviewers seem to have faced is that their instructors fall short in their ability to teach this subject. Coupled with a good instructor (such as Prof. Martin) who gives very accessible and intuitive proofs in lecture (possibly by sacrificing rigor in favor of understanding), this text allows a student to have a solid understanding of the topic from a mathematically rigorous point of view.
Rating:
Summary: Rigorous and cumulative approach to computation
Review: Logic and linguistics interweave and become virtually indistinguishable through the unifying topic of computability. Any serious seeker of knowledge must be familiar with the underlying concepts of computation. Psychology, philosophy, computer science, the physical and metaphysical are all touched upon by this one subject. The approach of this work is fairly standard. It begins with machines generating or recognizing languages of increasing inclusiveness and generality, and proceeds to further subject matter, computability and complexity. It opens with two introductory chapters covering the basics of set theory, inductive proofs, and linguistic concepts which will be utilized throughout the book. Each topic after this builds upon the previous ones systematically and gradually. Both mathematical/logical, and verbose prose descriptions are employed, to coax the reader through this intricate and immensely important subject. One must be well grounded in reading mathematics. The introductory chapters will likely be insufficient for the neophyte, who may become frustrated as the material develops, even as gradual as this cumulation is. Rigorous proofs are provided, and the reader is expected to appreciate the underlying implications. One must exert some considerable personal effort to achieve this level. This work stands at a middle ground in the subject, between the relatively informal approach of the excellent Sipser text, and the extremely thorough work by Hopcraft et al. It expects the reader to approach the subject with seriousness, yet provides gentler guidance through the more complex subtopics than other related works having this level of mathematical rigor.
Rating:
Summary: Bad book. bad teacher
Review: Only give this book to your students if you want them to appreciate you more as a teacher, or if you merely want to make them suffer. The book's writing style varies from chapter to chapter (chapter 3 manages to climb all the way to mediocrity in it's clarity), but all in all you can read this 100 times and still get very little out of it. The book proves theories with 2 lines of text stating "it's obvious this is true". Well heck, pigeon hole principle seems obvious, but that doesn't seem like a proof, just an observation. Many of the examples skip important steps, which means you spend extra time wondering "how'd he do that". All in all, this book fails miserably. It's too basic for anyone advanced in the subject. And the miserable writing style and horrible examples make this book pretty useless to the layperson. And teachers, unless you want your students to turn in proofs like the author (proofs... what proofs) then don't give this book to your students.
Rating:
Summary: One word - Difficult to read
Review: The information presented in this book is compact and difficult to understand. I am using this book in my undergraduate class right now and I have to re-read sections over a few times before I start to understand the material. I'd recommend getting another text if you are unfortunate enough to use such a book in your class. I'd recommend getting Micheal Sipser's book on Automata theory. The point of a text is to be clear and concise to the reader, but Martin's book falls short on both.
Rating:
Summary: Terrible book
Review: This book is awful. Hard to follow along with the reading. Poor examples, lacking and skipping many steps when there actually is an example. Answers to a few of the questions would have been nice, to know if the problems were done correctly. Must be a master of discrete mathmatics to have any understanding what is going on. I have seen many better books.
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