If you are a student of optics, this rather expensive text is not really going to help you that much considering the price. The best combination is Optics (4th Edition) for comprehension and Schaum's Outline of Optics for basic practice of what is covered in the textbook. Both books are written by the same author, and the first book might have been better if the author had incorporated more examples from his Schaum's outline into it. This book really glosses over explanations. The best part of the book are the programs that demonstrate various optics principles. These are included on the accompanying CD and are named at the different places in the book. Thus be careful if you buy a used copy, because without the CD you really don't have much. Students might want to look at the first edition, because besides branching out into other languages besides Mathcad, there really isn't that much difference between the two editions except price. For the instructor of college-level optics, I think this book is really useful. You can incorporate some of the programs into demonstrations and illustrate some difficult principles. For that purpose I highly recommend it.