Probability and Stochastic Processes: A Friendly Introduction for Electrical and Computer Engineers

Rating:
Summary: A Great Book to Teach From...
Review: I taught an undergraduate course in probability and stochastic processes last summer using this book. This book is so clearly written and laid out that for the first time in 20 years of teaching I could lecture directly from the book rather than having to spend the time to make up a set of notes. The many worked out problems are very helpful in illustrating concepts. All in all a great book.

Rating:
Summary: A supportive reader
Review: Let me begin by saying this book is written at a level for senior level B.S. and first year M.S. engineering (not math) students. It is the best book I've seen for introducing probability, random variables and related concepts to this student demographic (particularly to Elec. Eng. or Comp. Eng majors). It has all the introductory concepts and lays out the foundation for later subject matter in a seemless, easy to read and friendly manner. To qualify this statement, let me say that I had taken a similar engineering-related probability course in school a few years back that covered most of the same topics found in the Yates and Goodman book. I was confused about several issues even after I completed the course. It wasn't until I found this text and began reading it that all the questions and doubts I'd had went away. This text doesn't cover more advanced probability related concepts like entropy, mutual information and a host of others. What it does do is clearly provide you with the foundation in probability so that you can later read other more "involved" books like Stark and Woods or Papoulis and Pillai without the agony.

Rating:
Summary: A great introduction to Probability and Random Processes
Review: Professor Yates presents this subject matter, which may be somewhat confusing at first blush, in a manner that is easy to understand. This approach is very different from other texts, particularly those geared toward mathematicians, which tend to be overly terse and abstract.

Rating:
Summary: Very Basic
Review: This is a very basic book. It goes very fast and I think it rushes through its most important first chapter on "Experiments, Models and Probabilities" in 30 pages, even though this chapter is usually covered in 6 weeks in a normal college class.
In the preface, the authors stress how important it is to practice with as many probability problems as possible, yet this book does not let you do that. It does have many problems, but without the answers. Only teh few quizzes in the text have answers, besides the explanatory examples. I would have at least liked to see answers at the back to the odd-numbered problems after every chapter.
So far the price I paid for this book, I am very disappointed