Discrete Mathematics (5th Edition)

Rating:
Summary: One of the worst math books I have ever used
Review: I had a very strong mathematical background coming into college, and it's a good thing I did. This book managed to take concepts I understood very well coming into my discrete math class and make them confusing. The examples are not well explained and the text itself is very unintuitive. I just ended up skipping the reading and doing the problems. If you have any sort of discrete math experience, don't bother with this book. If you don't, try to find something better.

Rating:
Summary: terrible book
Review: I keep thinking as I'm forced to use this book for a college course, that Discrete Math would not be so confusing to me if not for this textbook. With a good textbook, I believe the concepts would not be very difficult, but this book makes them so. True, they have many examples - very few of which cover the complex things you are then asked to do in the Exercises. If I could give it negative stars, I would, since it doesn't teach us but confuses us.

Rating:
Summary: Not for beginners. A challenging math book.
Review: This review is about an older edition of the book. This text is appropiate for students/researchers who have a strong mathematical background or who intend to be competent in discrete mathematics. In my opinion this book requires mathematical maturity to understand most proofs and examples given. It certainly leaves out details of proofs, or omits entire proofs which make it hard to understand. But that is usual with any good math book. The examples tend to be abstract rather than practical. Reading this text requires a lot of thinking.

I wish it included some Automata and Complexity Theory as some other Discrete Math books do. But in any case the book is comprehensive and the presentation style is formal and well organized. I recognize a lot of effort from the authors putting so much information together in a single text with a clear/consistent notation. The book would be much thicker if it included every detail in proofs, and had more theorems and examples.

In short, this is a good book. I do research in Computer Science and I use this book as reference. This book can be a bad introductory text to Discrete Math. However, if you intend to pursue Graduate studies in Computer Science, Math, Operations Research or any other related discipline this book can be excellent help. By the way, the first author is an outstanding Computer Science researcher.