mathematics

First some background: I'm not a math major or someone with a lot of experience in math. I can't speak about the usefulness or benefit of this book as an introduction to more advanced dicrete math topics because I've never studied anything more advanced. What I can tell you is that I used this book a couple of years ago when I returned to school after 20 years to finish my Bachelor's degree. I found the book useful and quite adequate to learn the basics of the subject, and this book was one of the reasons Discrete became my favorite math class. There is a ton of material packed in between the covers -- mathematics history, biographical sketches, spartan but helpful illustrations, web links, additional book and periodical resources -- everything you need to get through the course and more.

Be warned though -- the first two or three chapters are kind of dry and difficult. Rosen explains things, but he doesn't spoon feed you. There's quite a bit of vocabulary and new ideas to digest; mathematical induction is just plain hard to understand in the beginning and it takes quite a while (and a lot of practice) to learn to construct well-formed proofs. Do yourself a favor and spend the extra money on the solution manual. What you don't understand just by reading the text is usually, though not always, made much clearer by working through the problems while reviewing the answers with the solution process laid out for you. WORK A LOT OF PROBLEMS. You will never really understand the concepts or retain the information without spending hours wrestling with this stuff. This isn't Art Appreciation 101 or Intro to Government. You're not going to grasp everything just by attending class and (maybe) reading the book. You've got to do some real analytical processing and wear out some erasers. You can fake your way through some classes, but this isn't one of them.

Once you get through the first three chapters, the rest of the book goes much more smoothly. Maybe you're acclimated to the subject by this time and it just comes to you easier. If you're like me, you should really begin enjoying things at this time and seeing how this can actually be useful in terms of understanding computation and computer science. You also begin to appreciate the organizational and teaching style of the book. It progresses at a good pace, but provides enough intoductory information and exercises to keep you from feeling like a complete idiot once you reach the more advanced sections in the chapter. Sure, there are some rough spots and a few sections that you just have to re-read several times. This IS a math text -- you can't expect it to be a page-turner like a good novel.

For those reviewers who think this book is too theoretical or too terse or just a pile of proofs thrown on top of each other, they need to open some of the other higher level math books out there. This book may not be perfect, but it was pure joy compared to my nightmare experience with numerical analysis (Numerical Analysis and Methods by Epperson). As for the cost, the book is way over-priced, but then what text book isn't? It just comes with the territory.

This is a very good book on Discrete Math. I have looked at several books and the only other book that comes close to quality is "Discrete Mathematics" by Hein.
To get the most out of this book it is recommended to get the solutions manual. Also the book's website has several useful worked out examples and links. Discrete Math is what computer science is all about and if you don't like Discrete Math then you should stay away from CS.

I like the layout, I like the explanations, I like the coverage. It's my favorite textbook. But the material isn't easy, and I think this will always mean Discrete Math textbooks get low reviews.