Re: Dragon Book - update necessary?

predictor@my-deja.com wrote on 10/9/00 10:34 AM:
> I just read the dragon book for the first time and I'm very impressed
> by the quality of this book. But it's quite old, isn't it?


For undergraduate work the only complaint I've had with this book is
that it's very wordy. When Sethi added his bit, the text ballooned
quite a bit. The early version of the Dragon book was much more
concise and less tiring to read.


As for the material being old, for an introductory course the
information is still pertinent. For a graduate course, the
Dragon book is a little out of step with the times since
(1) Optimization theory has advanced quite a bit since
the Dragon book was written, and
(2) We're back to the view that variables are registers
rather than memory locations.


There are several new texts that are excellent for graduate
work. Some instructors have even switched to other texts
for undergraduate work. However, there's nothing intrinsically
wrong with the Dragon book as an introductory text.
Randy Hyde

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