Publisher: Springer
Authors: John R. Barry Edward A. Lee David G. Messerschmitt
List Price: $85.00
Amazon Price: $115.78
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Reviews:
Summary: 93% Shovelware
Disappointingly it's not really formidable. By and large, it's just treacherous in a pusillanimous sort of way.
Surely the only value this book has is as an ivory tower kind of machiavellian way of controlling its author's highly intelligent students and academic colleagues who are no doubt searching for a broader and deeper perspective on digital communications. Now, come on, if my thesis on this text is true, then everyone should have some issues with all that. After all, how could an engineer justify its use in a design job? Besides, if my thesis holds, the use of this text outside the classroom is a serious waste of a firm's time and resources.
And its use even in the classroom is questionable, since, if my thesis is proper, it is then really just a bunch of classic teaching tricks, jazzed up in current comm. theory terminology. If so, then whatever the students might be learning from this text has little to do with what potential employers are looking for.
As a designer, simulator, and analyst of digital communication systems, I am therefore advising all potential readers not to get their hopes up. At least not too much. To me, at least, this book lacks real depth (logic design, control theory, circuits & systems [content/structure theory])--it seems to be a lot of obvious cut-n-paste lip service, but, all the same, there is an apparent dearth on how fundamental physical layer concepts interconnect. Its treatment on MIMO (Multiple Input, Multiple Output) might be considered objective and timely by some, but not by me. And I at least was expecting much, much more from three self-proclaimed "leaders" in "communication design" and their collaborative efforts. (Compare other Digital Communication texts Lathi, Couch, Proakis, Sklar, Ziemer/Tranter). B.P. Lathi's text on Communication Systems starts with the IEEE Code of Ethics. If John Barry's text were ever too, it would almost certainly be a travesty of professional engineering ethics.
No matter what its authors would have you believe, it is certainly nowhere near a bible. [Check Amazon's online "inside the book" where Chapter 1 has this biblical quote: "But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay; for whatever is more than these, cometh of evil. -The Gospel According to St. Matthew (5:37)"]. Doubtful anyone will be reading it a decade from now, let alone a millennium or two as far as I'm concerned. Even more doubtful that the authors have much experience outside the odd think tank or stilted academic department, at least that's my opinion.
For first-rate texts on the essentials of digital communication, here are four of my suggestions. They are classics that have been of great help to me in actually getting digital com. designs done:
1. Contemporary Logic Design by Randy H. Katz
2. Signals and Systems by Hwei P. Hsu (Schaum's outline series)
3. Feedback and Control Systems by Distefano, Stubberud, Williams (Schaum's outline series)
4. Probability, Random Variables, and Stochastic Processes by Anthanasios Papoulis
Summary: Few explaination
Even if very complete, very few explaination. Ridiculously expensive. Not a good buy.
Summary: Third time (edition) is a charm!
This text is excellent! I have a positive bias towards most of the works of Messerschmitt, Lee, Parks et al; and this book is no exception. The added MIMO channel detail in this edition makes it a well-rounded reference.
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