To spare others searching the man, you can download the pdfs to the current directory<p><pre><code> wget -r -np -nd -l 1 -A pdf http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/\~atri/courses/coding-theory/book/
</code></pre>
and combine them<p><pre><code> pdftk $(ls *.pdf | sort -V) cat output essential-coding-theory.pdf
</code></pre>
thus hastening the first draft.<p>BTW would the resulting essential-coding-theory.pdf be a derivative work under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0?
Clearly not a book for the ordinary reader. For me the transition from Sec.1.1 to Sec.1.2 was akin to starting with a quiet walk in the park, and then suddenly finding oneself clinging to a rock face as a cloud of chalk dust drifts down from the climbers up ahead....
Looks good! Seems to have a strong treatment of algebraic codes and coding bounds.<p>For those interested in reading, you'll probably want some background in linear algebra. All the necessary definitions are included in the text, but it doesn't go deep enough to make the reader 'comfortable' with linear algebra. Some background in abstract algebra will help too, but isn't as necessary.