This third edition is a truly comprehensive reference compendium of diverse topics in computing. The book is so large it is heavier than a laptop.

Divided into 12 parts, with 93 chapters and over 2,000 pages, it truly delivers as an outstanding reference book to adorn the libraries of computer science and software engineering students, professionals, and enthusiasts. Just to give you an idea of the range of topics covered, some of them are data structures, cryptography, storage systems, DNA computing, computer graphics, natural language processing, data compression, routing algorithms, operating systems, programming languages, software quality, and agile methodologies, to name a few.

This is obviously not a book that can be read from beginning to end, and that may not be possible over even a few years. The book deserves a place in all college libraries, and is a great stepping stone for doctoral researchers. There are hundreds of contributors to this book, mostly from universities, but some from industry as well. Peppered with theory, mathematics, and programming code snippets, the book has everything one needs to go into understanding an area.

There is a set pattern for each chapter, with key terms at the end and references after that. The key terms section is excellent and gives definitions for quick references. The depth of topics is so diverse it can even be used by high school students if they are researching a topic. One could ignore the deep mathematical analysis and still take away core elements from each chapter. For example, the chapter on storage systems goes into the evolution of hard disks to solid-state drives (SSDs), with mathematical analysis of file systems, mean time between failures, and redundant array of independent disks (RAID) technologies, and it does a lot of mathematical analysis. One can take away many details from this single chapter, which has hundreds of references for further research.

Fifty years from now, many of the fundamentals in this book will still be valid (or so I hope). If a student needs it for day-to-day to use for carrying in a backpack, I strongly recommend the Kindle edition over the hardbound one (due to the sheer size and weight). Overall, this resource is highly recommend for the library of anyone interested in digging deep into computing and software engineering.