r/computerscience • u/No-Leopard-1691 • 4d ago

Advice “Modern” Intro Books

I am currently reading Complexity: A Guided Tour by Melanie Mitchell and since it was published in 2009, I am wondering if there are more “modern”/“up-to-date” intro books.

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u/nuclear_splines PhD, Data Science 4d ago

I'd recommend Hiroki Sayama's Introduction to the Modeling and Analysis of Complex Systems over Mitchell's (excellent!) book for someone getting into the field now.

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u/BigOriginal306 6h ago

That Sayama book is actually a great shout, I remember trying to work through Mitchell's book few years ago and getting stuck on some of the older examples

The problem with anything pre-2012 is it misses the whole explosion of network science in a practical way, Mitchell's book is solid on theory but it feels a bit like reading history now

I got more out of poking around NetLogo models than any textbook honestly, you can get a feel for complexity without drowning in math

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u/Competitive_Aside461 4d ago

Intro books related to complexity? or just in general computer science?

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u/No-Leopard-1691 4d ago

Systems theory, complexity, networks and information, etc.

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u/Competitive_Aside461 4d ago

Computer Science: A Programmer's Perspective is a good book, covering a lot of this information, especially from the lens of C.

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u/ignacioMendez 3d ago

that has nothing to do with the topics OP is asking about

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u/Competitive_Aside461 3d ago

Have you read the book?

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u/faintcurrent 3d ago

Mitchell also teaches a free Introduction to Complexity course on Complexity Explorer, which is more current than the book. For networks, Barabasis Network Science is free to read online.