Computer Science Books

One of my criteria for accepting this book was to find a section on Blackman's immittance relation, a powerful but often overlooked circuit analysis technique. Different sections are treated by different authors, providing insight from many different perspectives. With so many topics handled, I was surprised at the thoroughness of the book. Not for a beginner, but can be used by anyone interested in circuit theory.

This book provides a comprehensive work covering the broad spectrum of electrical circuits and filters. It is designed to be used by practicing electrical engineers in industry and academia.

This handbook is not an all-encompassing digest of everything taught within an electrical engineering curriculum on circuits and filters, but rather an engineer's first choice in looking for a solution, standard practices and references to other sources, when needed.

This book provides a comprehensive work covering the broad spectrum of electrical circuits and filters. It is designed to be used by practicing electrical engineers in industry and academia.

This handbook is not an all-encompassing digest of everything taught within an electrical engineering curriculum on circuits and filters, but rather an engineer's first choice in looking for a solution, standard practices and references to other sources, when needed.

The book is divided into different sections, written by different groups of authors. At the end of each section you have a lot of references, so you can follow the topic deeper. These sections (13) cover most of the electronic knowledge you could use as experienced/professional user (feedback, nonlinear, CAD, distributed circuits,FILTERS of course, and many more). The quality of information given is very good, analog electronic design is covered excellently, digital related to analog then little bit worse.
I recommend this book to buy, I just have some comments:
1) The book is strongly theoretical (lots of equations), there is not a lot of examples (if I compare to Horovitz et Hill)
2) Some chapters are just passed very quickly (for example PLDs - 22V10 etcetc, no deep descriptions how to do that, just explanation what it is - the question then is, why they put it into that book)
3) Examples are few and in most of the cases they show just principle of work, so don't expect values of components. (one example for all: design of switched filter - you can see block schematic with a lot of MOS-like switches, but no real implementation of these switches. Then when you want to design this type of filter, you find out that it is not so easy to realize mos-switch because you have to take into account another things like back-injection of the charge, which are not mentioned etcetc) That lack of full examples is pitty, because then you cannot calculate backwards with the theory presented, and check for mistakes in your thinking.
4) Format of the book: the book is large and heavy (~2900pages), so manipulation is unpleasant. Perhaps if the book was divided into 4 thinner.... okay, but this is just my subjective opinion.
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Conclusion:
Although the book has some lacks, I strongly recommend to buy it. I would also recommend to buyer to invest another ~70USD to Horovitz&Hill-The Art of Electronics, because this book is very good complement to the one reviewed here.

This book was an inspiration. Dr. Ooi is a genius. I would recommend this book to anyone, who would like to enlighten themselves with knowledge of channel with feedback. Every college campus should own one.

"The Bible of channel feedback!" Dr Ooi has a keen understanding of the human condition and how it related to error correction and compression. I believe "James" has mastered communication without actually using any words from the english language!

With a crisp and cogent style, the author sets forth a new mathematical framework that can be used to develop and analyze coding schemes that use receiver feedback. We have already used certain concepts described in the text to design an improved version of our company's current microwave communication technology. This book is a must-buy for anyone involved in communication systems or in the practical application of information theoretic principles. This will surely place Dr. Ooi in a class with Shannon, Fano, Gallager, Wyner, Ziv, and the other intellectual giants in the field!

Dr. Ooi (of The Cambridge Analytic Group) provides an inspiring framework for analyzing and designing coding methodoligies for channels with feedback. His technical writing is of the highest caliber and the generality of his approach naturally unifies topics which had previously been deemed unrelated. This is an essential text for any professional or student interested in practical or theoretical coding.

Martin Davis' "Computability and Un-solvability" has been used as the textbook of a graduate course offered by the author at the University of Illinois and a series of lectures at Bell Telephone Laboratories. The style of the book is mathematically formal. Its primary elements are definitions, lemmas, theorems, and proofs. For the readers, who are pursuing to understand more about the Hilbert's tenth problem, algorithm, and recursively enumerable sets, would find this book interesting. The first five chapters are about the general theory of computability, which is the concern of the existence of algorithm--purely mechanical procedures for solving various problems (no creative thought is needed while executing the procedure). First of all, the author introduces Turing machines (A Turing machine is a finite (nonempty) set of quadruples that contains no two quadruples whose first two symbols are the same). Then Davis introduces the definition of the computation of a Turing machine (a finite sequence of instantaneous description of a Turing machine), symbolic representation for numbers (5=SiSiSiSiSi), partially computable functions (the existence of a Turing machine whose resultant is equivalent to f(x1,x2,...,xn), computable functions (f(x1,x2,...,xn) is a total function), recursive functions (a function can be obtained by a finite number of applications of composition and minimalization of regular functions), and unsolvable decision problems (the non-existence of an algorithm for deciding the truth or falsity of whole class of statements). Chapter 6 to chapter 8 are about the applications of the general theory of computability, which includes the applications on combinatorial problems, Diophantine Equations (Hilbert's tenth problem is recursively unsolvable.), and mathematical logic (incompleteness and un-solvability theorems for logics). A glimpse of the "decisive limitation on the power of logics" (Godel's famous incompleteness theorem) is also presented. Chapter 9 to chapter 11 is about the further development of the general theory of computability. There are two appendixes related to mathematics. The first appendix is the fundamental facts of the elementary number theory. The second appendix is the author's paper "Hilbert's Tenth problem is unsolvable." The readers would need a clear concept on computable functions, effectively calculable functions, and algorithm to understand both the general theory of computability and the Hilbert's Tenth problem.

Another classic reprint rom Dover at a reasonable price. Martin Davis is a very well-known worker in the area of logical foundations of computing. This book covers much fascinating material and provides answers to some deep questions relating to the limits of computations. The material can be a little dry but worth the effort. The book is worth the price for the appendix which is a reprint of an article by Davis on the proof of the unsolvability of Hilbert's Tenth Problem.

This is a reprint of Davis's 1958 book, and at the dover price, it's a great bargain. The book is for math students and introduces the basics of recursive function theory (the table of contents gives a good impression of what's included- here the 'iteration theorem' means the smn theorem). Note it doesn't cover a lot of the more computer-science oriented topics that are standard for undergraduate books titled 'computability theory', such as regular automata, grammars & parsing, complexity classes and NP-completeness (if you want this material I recommend Lewis & Papadimitriou). I found it very well-written and it gets a lot done in under 200 pages. The theorems fit together like precision-machined parts- Davis obviously put a lot of care into his choice of material and presentation, achieving a maximum of efficiency and cohesion. The style is rigorous throughout (for instance, I enjoyed his tight handling of Turing machines by using a series of well-chosen lemmas- its perhaps the first time I've really seen this done right). The last three chapters are noticeably steeper and not as well done- its too bad there was never a second edition. In the appendix is a complete proof of the unsolvability of Hilbert's 10th problem. There are no exercises.

This would be a good preparation for Hartley Rogers book- Davis provides a solid foundation of the material taken as the starting point in Rogers (and then some), and his rigorous style should give you the confidence and familiarity with working things out in full detail before you allow yourself the looser style of Rogers "by Church's Thesis" approach. Of course, I read Rogers first so maybe I'm wrong. I also prefer the way Davis handles relativized computation (he uses oracle machines and all theorems are relativized right from the beginning).

The book introduces the theory of computability and non-computability to the mathematically-comfortable. The theory of recursive functions provides entry to that theoretical territory at the limits of what is computable and what is solvable. The theory is relevant to important philosophical questions and also in the theory of computing and what is possible (and never possible) by use of computing machines.

The result for philosophy is establishment of absolutely unsolvable problems and undecidable questions, even ones that can be completely and precisely formulated using rigorous logic. The result for computing is problems that are absolutely unsolvable by use of a computer program.

So what problems are theoretically solvable by a computer program? First, the Universal Turing Machine (UTM) is presented along with the famous demonstration that all universal computers are equivalent in the sense that any one of them can be made to simulate any of the others, using a suitable representation.

So, if we establish that the computer we have at hand is a universal computer, we can be confident that, in principle, anything that any computer can compute, this one can also.

The book goes on to address what even universal computers can't do. The most well-known result in computer-science circles is the unsolvability of the halting problem. That is, if the computer is powerful enough to be universal, one of its limitations is the impossibility of an algorithm that will determine whether any program for that machine will always terminate for all inputs. It is as if the price of universality is the inevitability of programs that won't finish, along with having no absolute way of telling whether arbitrary given programs will finish or not.

Davis maps the boundary between the impossible (the unsolvable) and the merely inhumanly difficult (the computable). With that foundation, one can move on to other work that introduces what has been learned about computational complexity and how to apply the analysis of algorithms to finding computational methods that are practical and no more complex than absolutely necessary.

The book is an essential part of my library because of its availability and its standing as a fundamental reference in the theory of computation. Church's Thesis and the development of effective computability via the lambda-calculus and combinatory logic is neglected more than suits me. Available supplementary references are needed for access to those alternative formulations that promise to bear directly on having operational, practical computer systems that function at the limits of computability.

I discovered this book while working at Microsoft. They have 3 copies! It is the most profound book on computer systems, information networks and how to become a literate computer user/advocate ever written. If you find a copy I will pay top dollar for it!

When the first self-published edition came out in 1974, Ted Nelson's two-sided classic about the current and wished-for state of computers-as-cultural-tool had the memetic impact of a big ol' 2 x 4 to the forehead on the few who read it.

In an era when IBM dominated the industry, and the best most social critics could come up with vis-a-vis computers was an incoherent babble about punch cards and Big Brother, it revealed a side of computing few had seen, and dared to dream about knowledge-sharing networks and graphic interfaces.

In 1989, I bought two dozen copies of this book (Microsoft Press edition). I gave some copies to friends, but most went to my co-workers at a small home-PC company. It was a coolness test. People who talked about it, who GOT it, I had hope for. Those who didn't get it, or scoffed, I marked as duffers. Alas, this included many of the company's higher ups.

Why only four stars for what was once an utterly invaluable tome, a source of inspiration, a shining literary beacon of hope? Mostly because much of what Computer Lib / Dream Machines advocated has come to pass (albeit in ways that Nelson would probably not prefer). Partially because the battle to complete the job has moved into other spheres: Legal, commercial, and the nitty-gritty work of actual product creation.

If you see a copy, or either edition, BUY IT.

Theodor Nelson is an academic and computer visionary who is generally credited with creating the term "hypertext" in 1965. While hypertext had been conceived of as early as the 1940s, Nelson was the first to construct it within the context of the emerging computer technologies of the 1960s and 70s as a new mode of publication.

The word "visionary" gets thrown around quite a bit when one talks about computers and the Internet: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos ... all visionaries. And then you read this book, which originally appeared in the 1970s, based on ideas Nelson developed in the 1960s, and you discover what visionary really means.

Dream Machines is a bona fide computer culture classic; it is shocking that such an influential and important book is out of print.

Ted Nelson has given us a vision. The vision, and this book itself describe a paradox: quaint and futuristic at the same time. It's two books in one cover, and it's easy to pick up and read at any point. Bring it back in print so more can enjoy it! This author coined the term "hypertext", and describes a universe slightly parallel to ours, where the WorldWideWeb is known as Xanadu, where electronic documents are linked and not embedded; where authors could receive monetary credit for citations or purchases. My copy of this book is from the Microsoft Press reprints in the 80's. I still fondle it often. It's one of those books that get stolen from your bookshelf, or you leave on the table for months. I find the author can explain computer science and computer graphics in simple, fun terms. This book is a classic computer book, and it explains the wonder and the pleasure that some people get from computers in a wildly creative way. It's a love story, it's a "punk hacker" story, it's a tragedy. The source code to xanadu has been released this year, revitalizing the questions raised in this book. Not everyone will agree with Ted Nelson, but I think this is a great book.

Easy to understand. It is essential to a researcher. It would have been rated as an excellent book if it includes the Matlab programming and Erdas rather than any other software like MIPS.

Matlab based programs would have been more beneficial because many of them use matlab only.

I checked the book out from my library to read for my thesis, but the book is so good that I want to add it to my own collection. I have used it so much, that I'll need my own copy! The CD that comes with the book is also very good. The programs run very quickly on today's fast PC's. It's a great tool.

I bought it just looking at the table of contents at ... website, and I got exactly what I was looking for !! A complete book on image processing/interpretation for remote-sensing imageries. There is even a concise introduction on remote-sensing principles. The book is concisely detailed and have clear how-to-do theoretical/mathematical explanations(often lacking in others) on every topic. And the best point, every section/method is referred to key publicatons for anyone interested in in-depth study of a topic !!!

This book is fantastic! It's like a more "fleshed out" version of Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs - 2nd Edition (MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science). It uses a neat (if somewhat weird) language called Oz, which has a number of interesting features, which are used to demonstrate the concepts of the book. Much like SICP, this book is a real masterpiece, elegantly composed and explained.

Modern programming has become fragmented into a variety of computational models (OO, functional, imperative, etc), and a variety of languages supporting those computational models. Neophyte programmers are typically introduced to just one of these models, and only learn the other, "less natural" models later. With CTM, Van Roy and Haridi take an alternative approach. They teach programming as an integrated discipline, and demonstrate the underlying links between the different computational models. By the time the reader is done with the book they will have a much better understanding of the discipline of programming, and will be well-equipped to decide which model is best suited to the task at hand. Reading CTM is an extremely worthwhile experience for anyone wishing to achieve a deep understanding of the art and science of programming.

CTM has been compared to Abelson and Sussman's "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs". They are similar, in the sense that they both provide the reader with a deeper understanding of programming than most programming texts. However, the content of both books is quite different, and it is definitely worth reading both.

Another book that I feel makes a good companion to CTM is Hoare's (sadly hard to come by) "Unifying Theories of Programming". It covers a lot of the same material as CTM, but in a much more theoretical sense. Where CTM is concerned with practical programming, Hoare is concerned with mathematical underpinnings. The two complement each other nicely.

In 1976 Edsger W. Dijkstra elevated programming to an intellectual discipline and taught us how to reason about what we now call "imperative programming". To illustrate his methodology Dijkstra solved challenging problems with unforgetably beautiful, yet simple and powerful example programs that are as relevant today as they were forty years ago. Since then, programming has splintered into paradigms, methodologies and suffers from baroqueness, perpetuation of obsolete conventions and other practices that restrict the full expressive power of programming "as a whole".

In 2004 Van Roy and Seif Haridi have given us a glimpse of what programming can be like without unnecessary restrictions imposed by paradigms and other heavy baggage caused by politics, ideology and historical inertia. Using the remarkably mature implementation of the Mozart system and the conceptually clean, simple, elegant, yet powerful programming language Oz, Van Roy and Haridi show us how dogmatic heavy baggage falls away when we can look at programming as a whole and choose the best programming concepts that the solution of a problem requires. Such a program becomes simpler, more elegant and therefore less error prone than an equivalent solution that is restricted to a specific paradigm.

This book is a real mind-bender that illuminates paths for computer design at both the conceptual and practical levels I'd never travelled down before.

The notion that one language can be so flexible as to accomodate both the syntax and semantics of so many different computational models, or paradigms, took some unlearning of bad programming practice before its power, elegance and potential began to sink in.

It also explodes the myth that "pure" languages -- i.e., pure OO, or pure functional, etc., languages--have some kind of innate advantage over so-called "hybrid" languages. In fact, "hybrid" (or as the authors would prefer to call them, "multi-paradigm") languages come out of this book looking even more powerful than the "pure" ones, insofar as they allow the programmer to use the right model for each task, instead of trying to make OO fit, for instance, in places where it doesn't fit so well.

The idea here is that each computational model represents a completely different way of approaching a domain problem. Used by themselves, each has its niche. For instance, everybody knows OO is good for domain modelling and busines objects. Prolog-type languages are good for applications that need to apply rules over a set of data. Functional languages are great in mathematical applications. And so on. What is new here is that one can program in an environment in which all of these tools are available in a single core semantics that seamlessly weaves these computational models into a complementary whole. Used together judiciously, with an eye toward program correctness, they make things possible that have long been considered very hard -- for instance, constraint programming.

Mozart-Oz, the underlying technology, is a strange language when you first look at it. It's hard at first to get used to concepts like "higher-order programming" or "by need execution" or "lazy execution" if you are the programming grunt in the field of most modern IT shops, forced by bosses to code in your standard fare -- Java, C#, VB, etc. If OO in Java is like the hammer that makes everything look like a nail, in Mozart-Oz you have a language that is like walking into Ace hardware store, a swiss army knife of a language (conceptually speaking) that challenges you to become a highly skill code craftsman, not just a programmer.

But, if only for the personal growth you will experience grappling with the concepts in this book, I recommend it very highly even to "non academic" programmers (like myself) as well as to any advanced student of computer science. It may be painful, you may scratch your head in places where the concepts just seemed to leap over your cranium, but if you are patient, do the exercises (and at least think about what it would take to tackle some of the research projects), you will grow.

Unfortunately, you may find the languages you work on to be rather confining, and maybe even boring, after you get a whiff of what multi-paradigm programming can do. More likely, however, is that you will grasp very clearly how the language you code in today works, and that can only make you a better software engineer. So do it-buy this book!

You want to know a great way on "how to" identify classes from any type of user requiremnets? Buy this book now!

A lot of OOA books like to tell how to design from start to finish. However, some (most) of us are thrown in some obligatory process without consent. CRC will bridge the gap on getting your Classes defined.

Also, CRC works well for "Use Cases". I use CRC after a good Use Case session for Class Diagrams. Some prefer to do CRC before Use Cases. That's the beauty, CRC can be injected anywhere you deem fit.

And, finally, this book will get you "thinking in objects" fast!

I have been trying to teach OOD to new graduates for a couple of years. Now I teach through this book first. It has more good information about how to get groups to come up with good designs than any other book I have found. Be warned, it's not about UML or Java. The book is about how to get people to work out a design together.

This book and the stream of thought it stems from is one of the most influental in OO software engineering. It focuses on sharing responsibility in a system. It takes into account the obvious parallels between software teams and their software systems.
The technique itself can be very enjoyable and if you can convince very formal people to use it, it will change their lives, much more then any formal OO methodology will do. CRC Cards make you live software systems! This should be the first experience of everybody who wants to learn OO. You can even use it to explain your work to your kids:-)

This book encourages better OO design and analysis, shows how to involve the entire team of developers to the design of the whole system. The authors also describe how to gain benefit from involving the user and other parties to the OO design process.

I was in OO development for five years and I was thinking about a solution which will improve the efficiency of OO design and help to avoid splitting the program between developers who create their own set of classes they are responsible for. Such splitting leads to integration problems and overall design imbalance. Fred Brooks has described this consequences in his famous book "The Mythical Man-Month", where the modules are being written first and integrated later, and the coordination of interfaces between modules written by each developer requires essential effort and time. The CRC Card Book shows how to have "the interfaces" coordinated in the very beginning.

However, the methodology described in this book is "fragile". As soon as it isn't followed by all of the developers, it became useless. But if it is followed, the results are amazing. The book, however, is not very easy to read and lack something which can attract the developers who are "neutral" to improving their way of creating OO programs. But, for the people who already have strong OO background and are seeking the way how to improve their efficiency significant, the book is a must-have.

As an ex Chief Information Officer for a fortune 500 company, I've spent many years communicating to government and industry alike, what impact we could reasonably expect from the Year 2000 Computer Date Change Problem. This is the best book I have read to date, which provides reasonable and definitive answers to one the questions I am most frequently asked regarding Y2K, "What should I do about my investments?"

Today, as a consultant and author of THE REASONABLE PERSON'S GUIDE TO Y2K, I spend my time communicating about what moderate, down-to-earth, level-headed governments and individuals can do to prepare. In that regard, I consider L. Jay Kuo's and Edward Dua's book the reasonably person's guide to investing for the Year 2000 transition. I highly recommend this book for those who believe Y2K will not be a disaster, nor will it be "business-as-usual", and that reasonable preparedness for something "in between" is warranted.

If you believe Dr. Ed Yardeni, Chief Global Economist and Global Investment Strategist for Duetsche Bank Securities, when he predicts a 70% probability that Y2K will create a global recession which could last 12 to 24 months, then this book is must reading.

What I particularly liked about this book, is that the information is usable and it is not the "don't worry, be happy" message most brokerage houses are espousing. Not only do the authors provide powerful insight into how and why you should defensively posture current investments against a Y2K induced recession, they also venture forth suggestions on how to profit from it as well. Something I have been trying to get my broker to tell me for months. Come to think of it, I highly recommend this book for stockbrokers and fund managers too.

I read an advance copy of this book. A very timely look at a problem (opportunity) that will soon be upon us. Dua hits the nail on the head when he says, "With Y2K there will be winners and losers in the investing world. Try to be one of them." Excellently written. Highly recommended for the casual or professional investor.

This book was a refreshing change from some other books that have been published on the subject of Y2K investing. Specifically, it is an extraordinarily well-researched book. It provides indepth details of possible y2k strategies and names specific stocks. Truly an outstanding effort!

Not being someone who typically reads a lot of investment guides, I was very happily astonished at how easily this book reads. L. Jay Kuo is an excellent writer, describing the background of the Y2K problem without getting too technical and obscure, and depicts the issue with extreme clarity and (dare I suggest it?) engaging wit. People from all backgrounds, from the investment-astute to the "digerati" (as Mr. Kuo puts it), to the neophytes, hesitant about investing in general but looking for some simple but straightforward insightful commentary and/or advice, will be able to get a lot out of this book. Oddly enough, it's even entertaining (!) -- Mr. Kuo is clever with his subheadings and his turn of phrase. While it is definitely not written to be "over people's heads" (as many investment guides seem to be), Mr. Kuo still manages to deliver deceptively clear prose with many witty allusions and insights, such that the book does not fall into the "pedantic trap" (as many investment guides ALSO seem to do). He explains the areas most likely to be adversely (and positively) affected by the upcoming confusion surrounding Y2K, presents really quite sound reasons for these views, and then suggests some viable approaches and at-least short term solutions so as to best protect oneself (and one's portfolio) from the inevitable chaos Y2K will present to the financial markets. Even if you never read another investment guide in your life, I recommend this one. Highly.

This book provides a very thorough, yet practical explanation of social security in an easy to read format. This is a great guide for almost anyone wanting a better understanding of not only how the program works, but how it will work for them as an individual participant.
However--as the author mentions--it should not be viewed as a technical reference for financial professionals.

OK, I'm the author and I'm biased. But the other Social Security books out there still seem to be either very poor-quality consumer guides (out of date, inaccurate, or jargon), or the "Social Security is a rip-off and it will crash in a few years" type. My guiding principles in creating this book: --accuracy (gained from many years working at SSA), --plain English, and --lots of concrete examples. There are a few areas where the book has become obsolete: --All the payment figures have increased with inflation. --The 1.45% payroll tax on Medicare no longer has an an earnings cap--it applies to all earnings, no matter how high. --The amount of Social Security benefits included in your taxable income has increased from 50% to 85% for high- income retirees. Otherwise the book is still current. (OK, it's time for a new edition, which I'll complete one of these days!) I invite readers to contact me with individual questions or comments. Happy reading!

I'm a retired Soc. Sec. claims rep and I rate this book as the best explanation of Social Security benefits I've ever seen. The writer's style is great and he has a nice, friendly approach. It's not an easy subject, but he explains things in a simple, understandable fashion.

Mr. Landis has succeeded in making a very complicated subject comprehensible to the average reader. All my questions about how the system works were answered. I appreciated the fact that Mr. Landis was employed by the Social Security Administration for many years and was able to give an insider's account of procedures and benefits. Many thanks for this very helpful book!

This book discusses some of the techniques used
in Data Mining.
It goes into Data Exploration as well as Evaluating
Classification and Predictive Performance.

Some of the more advanced techniques such as
Neural Nets and Cluster Analysis are
also discussed.

To learn more about database design and relational data modeling visit
[...]

I've used this as textbook for three years (even before it was in print) for my "Business Intelligence Using Data Mining" elective MBA course at the Indian School of Business. Till last Fall, I used to structure my class around the four major data-mining techniques explained well in this book; classification, prediction, clustering and association rules (what goes with what). The last time I switched completely to driving the class using the six or seven excellent cases at the back of the book, and the Business students loved that.

The cases and the associated data are rich; providing a business context to anchor the learning for students in the B-School. They allow the instructor to naturally cover important practical issues, such as over-sampling (when events that one is interested in -- say load defaults -- are rare), and asymmetric classification costs.

My class typically has a group project, where students have to pull everything together, from identifying a data mining opportunity, to collecting the data (beg, borrow or crawl:-), to performing exploratory data analysis (a key chapter in the book), to analyzing and presenting the results. Its usually more work than the students expect, but also typically much more learning than they expect.

In summary, a great resource for teaching the principles of data mining to anyone, and particularly useful for those in a Business School setting.

This book got its start as notes for a data mining class that one of us (Nitin Patel) was teaching at MIT, and was completed while another of us (Galit Shmueli) was teaching a similar course at Maryland. Both courses were part of an MBA program. We found that, while there are a lot of books on data mining, there were none that actually gave business students the skills and tools to implement data mining algorithms. So we set ourselves the task of writing a book that (1) provides real data sets with a business decision-making context and a hands-on orientation , (2) provides a theoretical and practical understanding of the key data mining methods of classification, prediction, data reduction and exploration at a level that is appropriate and useful for MBA's, and (3) bundles a powerful version of a commercial data mining tool that works in Excel (XLMiner). For this reason, we think our book will be appropriate not just for students, but also for business analysts with a quantitative orientation, on, indeed, anyone who wants to learn data mining via self-study. Have we succeeded? You be the judge! - P. Bruce (for G. Shmueli and N. Patel)

Data mining is the extraction of useful information from large amounts of data. Perhaps the best example of this is Amazon. If you go to Amazon to look at a book, you'll find such tidbits of information as a section on the page headlined 'Customers who bought this item also bought' and another 'What do customers ultimately buy after viewing this item?'

That's datamining, dozens or hundreds, or thousands of people looked at the page about this item. Then they went on to take these other actions. Among all the data that Amazon has collected they mine their database and pull out information to fill in these blocks.

This book, intended for MBA level students gives an excellent introduction to data mining. It further includes access to an Excel add-in called XLMiner that is specifically set up to allow the student to use Excel to learn how data mining is done.

The one thing I would ask the authors to do in their next edition is to provide a brief review of the commercially available data mining software products that are available. If not all of the software, perhaps just the top half dozen or so. In real life we aren't going to use Excel for data mining, our data resides in a database somewhere.