Research in Coding Theory I have just started learning about coding theory. Hence, I would like to ask for your suggestions and guidance for a very beginner like me.


Which books are good for beginning coding theory? (I start reading the notes by J.I. Hall
from here).
Which topics now are hot in coding theory? so that I could look at and choose the track to follow.
Where I could find lastest preprints and papers on coding theory. I know only "Designs, Codes and Cryptography".


Many thanks in advance.
From a mathematical perspective: Try 


  1) Handbook of coding theory - Huffman and Pless
  
  2) Fundamentals of Error-Correcting Codes - Huffman and Pless
  
  3) Introduction to coding theory - Ron Roth 
  
  4) Algebraic Geometric Codes: Basic Notions - Vladut, Nogin and Tsfasman 
  
  5) Introduction to Coding Theory - Van Lint 
  
  6) Algebraic Geometry in Coding Theory and Cryptography - Harald Niederreiter and Chaoping Xing.


From an engineering perspective: Try 


  1) Error Control Coding - Shu Lin and Daniel Costello 
  
  2) Modern Coding Theory - Richardson and Urbanke 
  
  3) Error Correction Coding - Todd K Moon 
  
  4) Channel Codes: Classical and Modern - William Ryan and Shu Lin.


From Computer Science perspective: Try 


  1) Madhu Sudan MIT Notes 
  
  2) Algorithmic Results in List Decoding -  Guruswami 
  
  3) Computational complexity - Boaz Barak (Chapter 19) 
  
  4) Refer this cstheory question - Using error-correcting codes in theory
  
  5) Locally Decodable Codes - Yekhanin
  
  6) Chapter on applications of coding theory in complexity theory in Different Aspects of Coding Theory - Calderbank.