The book provides a broad introduction to both the theory and the application of optimization with a special emphasis on the elegance, importance, and usefulness of the parametric self-dual simplex method. The book assumes that a problem in "standard form," is a problem with inequality constraints and nonnegative variables. The main new innovation to the book is the use of clickable links to the (newly updated) online app to help students do the trivial but tedious arithmetic when solving optimization problems.

With its focus on solving practical problems, the book features free C programs to implement the major algorithms covered, including the two-phase simplex method, the primal-dual simplex method, the path-following interior-point method, and and the homogeneous self-dual method. In addition, the author provides online tools that illustrate various pivot rules and variants of the simplex method, both for linear programming and for network flows. These C programs and online pivot tools can be found on the book's website. The website also includes new online instructional tools and exercises.