[.ca] Digital Design: Principles and Practices (ISBN 0131863894)

THE book for starters (& Ref):
I am a CS guy too, and this book was required for the Digital Logic class. I love this book, cause it doesn't have any pre-reqs, and so anyone with an interest can pick it up and will have a good idea as to what digital circuits are all about. I'm sure that chapter 3, which deals with the analog circuitory isn't very amazing to CS guys, but my prof. insisted on learning that chapter, and I'm happy he did. We all cursed him for teaching us transistors and CMOS logic, but it was well worth it, and I'm happy Wakerly has included it in this book. All you have to do is read every word in Chapter 3, and you'll have a great idea. The scope of this book is excellent. Taking you from Binary numbers to RAM in one book is quite an achievement and it just flows. Also a good source to pick up VHDL. The diagrams are very clear and easy to understand. After reading through 3/4ths of this book, I was able to design a few components(different design) by myself without any help. I would recommend this book highly..And if you're CS, please don't think of Chapter 3 as a waste and skip it.. Cause if you want to get a better understanding and feel for things..you Better read it..I'm happy I was forced to.

This book rocks:
This book is excellent. It covers everything there is to know about Digital Design and does it in style. Wakerly has gone down and covered every basic detail and this makes your concepts crystal-clear. There is just the right amount of humour in the book to keep you going. The writing style is good too, it feels like you're actually listening to somebody teach. I think Wakerly has done an amazing job and this is the first and the last book which you'll need for this subject (atleast at the undergrad level).

Not a good book for nonECE students >:(:
The first four to five chapters are ok. You actually get a chance to learn something useful, like binary arythmetic and switching algebra, as well as how to build some basic circuits (although I often had to search the web for the additional explanation). After that, however, the material becomes so complex and confusing, that after reading it I usually was like "Uh, what did he just talk about?" All in all, I think that the ECE class was a waste of time and I wander why we had to take it in the first place.

Don't Buy This Book:
It seems that the author is preaching to the engineering choir because it is written for people who seem to already know the subject. Furthermore, it seems that the author has a sick desire to tell everyone how smart he is by taking a simple subject and making it as hard as possible. There is no intention of teaching the subject and its only purpose is to tell you that it exists. With the exception of a few good tables/examples, much of the writing and diagrams are crammed in an endless, sloppy soup of paragraphs and over inflated jargon. Concepts are NOT taught in a structured, simplistic, thorough, or systematic approach, so using this book as a quick reference would be difficult as well. Problem examples are few and are buried within the text. I did NOT find any humor in the pages but did find the material to be as exciting as watching paint dry. Concept instruction, which seems simple at first, quickly degenerates to the point that the rest of the chapter no longer makes any sense. Freshman students in Computer Science, who are forced to use this book by their university, will find it difficult to comprehend to the point of becoming discouraged and thinking this major is not for them. I highly recommend finding a supplement to this book and purchasing a used copy if its use is mandatory.

A very nice book on Digital Design:
It is not an easy task to write a book that guides the reader from the very basic knowledge to the understanding the advanced problems of digital design and to keep the reader not to get it off for many hours. This book shows it is possible. It covers all that is necessary to master the digital design and contains answers to many questions that are usually not discussed in other similar books - e.g. why a latch and not a flipflop is used to store address in a microcomputer, and a lot of others. The ABEL and VHDL languages that are explained here help the reader to keep up with the modern design tools. Many examples illustrate the theoretical exposition that is (up to several minor exceptions) clear and comprehensible. I think it is the best book I have ever read in this field.