telecommunications

I agree with the previous reviewer. Without the maths, digital signal analysis is simply impossible. One of the reviewers complained about the proof of the Nyquist theorem, based on the fourier transform. I looked it up; the proof is explicit and clear. Of course, readers who are unfamiliar with fourier transforms may find it difficult to follow the proof - they should first learn some elementary maths before reading this book. I'm glad that Proakis does not treat all the kindergarten stuff in full detail. After reading what this book has to say about equalization, error control, modulation, etc., the road to the professional literature is open.

this is a great reference if you already know digital communication, but definitely not something that you read cover to cover. i hated this book when i was first forced to study from it, but on a second glance and a few years of research in communication theory, i like it quite a lot. definitely good for refreshing your memory or learning small things, but not for learning communication theory. you're much better off with the Proakis/Salehi "Communication System Engineering" book.

I both love and hate this book at the same time! Its great for its wide coverage and unified presentation of material but the organization is rather poor indeed. There is little motivation and the material is presented as a matter of fact collection of topics. The presentation also seems to be out of sequence at times.

Other gripes: The errata is quite large and still not complete. Upon closer inspection, I found that several of the problems require assumptions that are not clearly described in the problem statement. This leads to a frustrating experience at times.

I can think of ways in which the material could be re-organized to make the "flow" much better. Doing this and adding little motivation and connecting material would make this a truly great book. I don't think that much additional effort is required for the re-organization - too bad this hasn't happened in the first 4 editions.

A major plus of the book remains - nothing else comes close in coverage. So it is still a pretty decent book if you can get the intuition and organization from elsewhere.