algorithms

I finally got hold of the second edition....and the typos are gone - well, almost....:)

This is a very unique book. It presents a range of material relevant to dsp and communications that you will not likely find together in any other book. I think the proofs and explanations are pretty clear, and the book is very readable. Although my math background is limitied to the math courses I've taken within my EE curriculum, I found the math in this book to be accessible and understandable.

What brings it down, however, is the absolutely insane number of errors and typos. The errata for the SECOND printing is 43 pages long! It's so thick that I can't even staple it together with a regular stapler. And that's just the mistakes that they've identified. Who knows how many others lurk in the text undetected.

I can understand a page or two of corrections, that is typical of most EE textbooks. And I can understand that since this is a first edition, there will be more mistakes than for a typical textbook which has been through several editions. But 43 pages worth of mistakes is unacceptable in my opinion. This material is difficult enough without mistakes in the proofs and explanations.

Without the huge errata I would have happily given this book 5 stars, but for now I give it 2.

This book deals with the actual Mathematical foundations of Signal Processing algorithms that are used in a wide array of applications (like beamforming, communications, voice recognition etc..). It starts with very good introduction of Vector Spaces and Linear Algebra, and follows it with sections on Detection/Estimation Theory, Optimization Methods and Iterative/Recursive Algorithms. In my opinion, the most important feature of the book that makes it impressive is its wide coverage of topics and the different angle (mathematical rigor combined with proper explanations) at which these topics are approached. Note that this book will make more sense to an advanced student in EE rather than a beginner