Discrete Mathematics with Applications

Discrete Mathematics with Applications by Susanna Epp is the one book that I feel took me from simply knowing how to write programs to being a software engineer by filling in the theoretical blanks I had from being self-taught. Discrete mathematics in general is so wonderful and applicable to day-to-day software engineering problems and to me, that book is the best, most coherent, and most thorough one available on the topic.

I'm starting to learn CS all over again at the old age of 40, and had the pleasure to rediscover mathematics thanks to: - Discrete Mathematics with Applications, by Susanna Epp, or - Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications, by Kenneth Rosen (both have the same content, choose the style that you prefer), and - Concrete Mathematics, by our lord and savior Donald Knuth. I don't plan on reading TAOCP anymore as I would be dead by the time I finish reading everything else, but those introductory books are very good for beginners.

> You can work through the concepts and delude yourself into thinking you understand something when really you're just hand waving it I keep seeing this and I don't quite understand how this one works. If I were studying math on my own (which I've done and still do), I'd do the following: 1. Pick a book. Say, Rudin's Principles of Mathematical Analysis[0]. Read a section, then attempt problems. Pick a problem. Say, "prove {1/n: n is natural} U{0} is compact directly from the definition(not using Heine-Borel)". It's guaranteed your "proof" is not a proof. 2. Compare your solution to existing solution manuals or ask a question on MSE[1]. Since the given book by Rudin is super-massively famous, each question has probably been asked/answered about a bagillion times each on MSE, so just searching MSE alone would likely to spit out many answers to your questions. People on MSE will tell you exactly why your "solution" is wrong and where you tripped up. Sometimes even the clarifying answers are hard to understand. But then you can ask new questions, think more, correct your misconceptions until it all finally clicks. Do that with all the rest of the problems[2].…

I actually just bought Rosen's 'Discrete Math and Applications' on amazon. My college education was in art, so needless to say, not much mathematical training in my undergrad education. In my current job I'm a web developer and I've been trying to cover a CS knowledge base through self study. Through reading reviews about discrete mathematics books I was pointed towards Epps' 'Discrete Math with Applications' http://amzn.com/0495391328 and Rosen's book. I was told Epps' book doesn't go into as much depth, but doesn't assume any prior knowledge from the student. This is great for someone like me with an art degree and the will to learn discrete math. All this is tangentially related to why I'm posting. All of these books mentioned are really expensive, mostly because they are used in college classes. A trick I've started using is buying previous additions of these books for pennies on the dollar. I got Rosen's fifth edition for $7 as opposed to ~$160 for the seventh. After reading the update pages online, I don't think I really miss all that much doing this either.