A Cool, Brisk Walk Through Discrete Mathematics, an innovative and non-traditional approach to learning Discrete Math. Discrete math is a popular book topic — start Googling around and you’ll find a zillion different textbooks about it. Take a closer look, and you’ll discover that most of these are pretty thick, dense volumes packed with lots of equations and proofs. They’re principled approaches, written by mathematicians and (seemingly) to mathematicians. I speak with complete frankness when I say I’m comforted to know that the human race is well covered in this area. We need smart people who can derive complex expressions and prove theorems from scratch, and I’m glad we have them. Your average computer science practitioner, however, might be better served by a different approach. There are elements to the discrete math mindset that a budding software developer needs experience with. This is why discrete math is (properly, I believe) part of the mandatory curriculum for most computer science undergraduate programs. But for future programmers and engineers, the emphasis should be different than it is for mathematicians and researchers in computing theory. A practical computer scientist mostly needs to be able to use these tools, not to derive them. She needs familiarity, and practice, with the fundamental concepts and the thought processes they involve. The number of times the average software developer will need to construct a proof in graph theory is probably near zero. But the times she’ll find it useful to reason about probability, logic, or the properties of collections are frequent. I believe the majority of computer science students benefit most from simply gaining an appreciation for the richness and rigor of this material, what it means, and how it impacts their discipline. Becoming an expert theorem prover is not required, nor is deriving closed-form expressions for the sizes of trees with esoteric properties. Basic fluency with each topic area, and an intuition about when it can be applied, is the proper aim for most of those who would go forward and build tomorrow’s technology. To this end, the book in your hands is a quick guided tour of introductory-level discrete mathematics. It’s like a cool, brisk walk through a pretty forest. I point out the notable features of the landscape and try to instill a sense of appreciation and even of awe. I want the reader to get a feel for the lay of the land, and a little exercise. If the student acquires the requisite vocabulary, gets some practice playing with the toys, and learns to start thinking in terms of the concepts here described, I will count it as a success.