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Comment by jacobparker | Hacker News Reader

I took Watrous’s theory of (classical) computation course during my UW undergrad.

His lecturers were always very well prepared and engaging, the notes he released (iirc there were some supplementary notes) were great and his assignments were interesting. He also had consistently great type setting.

I guess I wanted to say that this book is probably cool.

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I'm slightly disappointed this book doesn't cover quantum computing -- which nowadays seems like a central part of quantum information. Any comprehensive resources to learn fundamentals of quantum computing? (without delving too deeply into particular applications)

Nielsen and Chuang is still canonical, albeit a little out of date. Has all the basics, and it's extremely well written.

Also becoming curious in quantum computing again (the current wave in classical software development is depressing IMHO so looking for an alternative for the futre). I read a good portion of Quantum Computing for Computer Scientists as an undergrad studying physics for a paper, but in searching for new texts, most people point to Nielsen and Chuang yet comment it is dated. Any good literature reviews out there to consider to get the new content Nielsen and Chuang don't have (while studying the Chuang's book as well)?

No, sorry, it's not really my field. However, my impression is that the results in Nielsen and Chuang haven't been superceded or anything, it's just that there's just more built on top of them. In other words, I think you're fine reading that cover-to-cover and worrying about further reading afterwards.

Quantum computing is still in the physical research phase, and it's not clear which qubit implementation will work and be scalable. It would be cool to see recent review papers and comparisons of current approaches, but I can't point you to any such.

On the theory side, the gate model is the standard approach for thinking about quantum computing and Nielsen and Chuang does a good job at covering it. If you need something more basic (to bring you up to speed), you can check out Ch9 in my book, which is an intro to Dirac notation and the quantum gate model: https://minireference.com/static/excerpts/noBSguide2LA_previ...

I also read those notes, and to a large extent they were my first introduction to the field of quantum computing after studying some quantum mechanics

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