This book was required reading for my graduate level advanced coding topics course. My first issue with the text is its clunky notation. Expressions and equations are written in unusual fonts. Super and sub scripts appear awkward, and the authors seem to introduce their own notation for convolution. Besides the cumbersome typesetting, the book has a somewhat scatterbrained approach for organizing material.



This book is essentially about LDPC codes, almost exclusively. The book is good as a side reference, perhaps to supplement a more organized and clearly written text such as Lin & Costello, but not as an introductory text, or a text one would use for clarifying concepts. The text by Todd Moon is a far superior reference.



Overall, I do not recommend this book. I've not gotten much use out of it all semester.