Browse Books

Reviewer: Leandro S. Indrusiak

There is a strong need for a textbook such as this one; electronics and computer engineering programs face changes in their curricula, seeking to adapt to current system-oriented trends. Curricular guidelines proposed by the educational authorities of the European Community [1], and strongly backed by the European consumer electronics industry, explicitly advocate the use of a blend of topics that will give the student a view of the whole system, and not only of its electronic circuitry. A similar approach can be observed in the current draft of the ACM Computing Curricula 2004 [2]. The fact that the new curricula must embrace topics that were traditionally divided among several degree programs, such as communications engineering, computer science, and electronic engineering, only makes matters worse. Thus, the ideal of having engineers who are knowledgeable in hardware, software, and communications will only be achieved if research on a common foundation among those areas is applied to teaching activities. Jantsch's book is one of the first textbooks to try that approach, and it relies on more than 20 years of research on models of computation to accomplish its task. Models of computation are formalisms that define how the parts of a given system behave and communicate, particularly with regard to synchronization and timing. Unlike other books on models of computation, written by theoretical computer scientists, Jantsch starts by recalling basic modeling principles that every engineering student knows, and by relating such principles with those of models of computation (time, concurrency, communication, and behavior composition), allowing for a lighter introduction to an otherwise arid subject. A similar approach is followed throughout the book, with a strong emphasis on applications to digital hardware and embedded software design, which avoids pure theoretical topics. The book also covers the possibility of interfacing different models of computation, a crucial issue in coping with the heterogeneity found in current systems, where, for instance, signal processing subsystems must coexist with reactive real-time modules. The book is suitable for an entry-level graduate course, providing students with the necessary background to build bridges between further courses covering traditional topics in computer science, computer engineering, and electronic engineering. Despite the efforts of the author to adapt the book's content for classroom use, the textbook still shows signs of its research-derived heritage. In many cases, this is beneficial, since students are given a solid foundation, and plenty of references for further reading on each of the covered topics. However, a few sections would benefit from more examples and real-world applications. The companion Web site for the book could be the ideal place for such extensions, as it is currently misused, only offering read-only copies of the teaching material used by the author in a graduate course. Online Computing Reviews Service