This textbook is well written, with lots of good examples and problems. The included CD has software that is about two major versions old -- better to download it. But it also has code for all the coding examples in the book, which, if you want to run them, can save lots of time and typos. One needs an Altera DE-2 demo board on which to run them (about $270 for academic users [with pretty restrictive licensing], $495 for commercial users).