Essential Coding Theory [pdf]

333 points57 commentsa day ago
cbm-vic-20

Claude Shannon's "The Mathematical Theory of Communication" (not mentioned by name, but referenced in the PDF) is a really pleasant little read. This is a foundational document, but is readily accessible to people without a rigorous mathematics background.

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL2296213W/The_mathematical_th...

show comments
mingtianzhang

It would be interesting to add more lossless compression stuff, which has a close connection to generative AI.

This PhD thesis gives a very good introduction: https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.10544

show comments
zkmon

From the book at the start of Chapter 2: "Chapter 1 introduced the fundamental quests of this book — namely error-correcting codes over some given alphabet and block length that achieve the best possible tradeoff between dimension and distance, and the asymptotics of these parameters. We refer to all the theory pertinent to this quest as coding theory"

So when they say "Coding" it is about error correcting codes, not about some programming. Sigh.

I suggest changing the title of the book to something like "Theory of error correcting codes"

show comments
tehnub

Another good, recently created text is Information Theory: From Coding to Learning.

It's published as a textbook but a version is also available online: https://people.lids.mit.edu/yp/homepage/data/itbook-export.p...

show comments
pbreit

What does "coding" mean in this context?

show comments
balamatom

I can only hope little Akash doesn't go into informatics one day. Real Milne moment there, gentlemen.

TeeMassive

Since we are sharing free CS eBooks, Algorithms by Jeff E. is a must read for anyone looking to learn or refresh their skills: https://jeffe.cs.illinois.edu/teaching/algorithms/book/Algor...

porridgeraisin

Couple of chapters in and I'm a fan. I'll be reading this on and off over the next few ... weeks? months? We'll see.

rramadass

Beginners might want to start with the following works;

1) An Introduction to Information Theory, Symbols, Signals and Noise by John R. Pierce - A classic general text to understand the concepts and build intuition. Other books by the same author are also excellent.

2) Information Theory: A Tutorial Introduction by James V. Stone - A good general introduction. The author has similar tutorial books on other subjects which are also good.

3) A Student's Guide to Coding and Information Theory by Stefan Moser and Po-ning chen - A concise guide. The other books in the "student's guide" series from cambridge are also good.

graycat

An important and well plowed subject. Can consider also for the coding theory

W.\ Wesley Peterson and E.\ J.\ Weldon, Jr., {\it Error-Correcting Codes, Second Edition,\/} The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1972.\ \

and for the abstract algebra, e.g., field theory

Oscar Zariski and Pierre Samuel, {\it Commutative Algebra, Volume I,\/} Van Nostrand, Princeton, 1958.\ \

show comments
derelicta

Ah it's always a bit intimidating when someone says something is part of the essentials when you have yourself only seen a tiny bit of this course material in your program

show comments
fithisux

A bit huge but understandable.

umvi

Note this is "coding" as in "encoding" and "decoding" (i.e. information theory) and not as in "programming"

show comments
zero-sharp

interesting topic, but essential for who?

show comments