Lady ada did an interview with Paul Horowitz (One of the authors) a couple of days ago [0] where he goes into detail of how the book came about and what's new in the 3rd edition,..etc.
Speaking of, after getting the third edition, I have the second version sitting unused. If anyone wants it for the cost of shipping, let me know.
I highly recommend someone take this generous offer. The book is very dense, but only because it is so beautifully concise. And you'll go quite far into the 2nd ed. before running into any anachronisms.
I'll take you up on that. [email protected] or Kliment on freenode IRC
Yes, finally! I've been waiting for that for two decades.
Covers things which are now basic, such as switching power supplies and DC-DC converters.
I learned from the 1st edition in ca. 1983, and I think it is one of the best textbooks ever written in any subject. It didn't hurt that the person teaching from the book was one of my best teachers too.
In my opinion "the art of electronics" is more of a hands-on book, that explains things qualitatively, and in an unstructured way; and thus it is quite different from any scientific textbook.
http://artofelectronics.net/
With a lot of relevant new content (references to Arduinos, etc), which is great since the last edition was from 1989.
And while the basics of transistors, etc, haven't changed since then, it's arguable that the kinds of circuits that are of most relevance may have changed. (A/D conversion, general interfacing with digital logic, things that didn't have simple IC solutions in 89, etc).