67 of 70 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The MATLAB textbook to have, February 13, 2009
This review is from: Hahn and Attaway Bundle: Matlab: A Practical Introduction to Programming and Problem Solving (Paperback)
I was a student at Boston University (BU) College of Engineering (EE). I felt the pain of having to learn and pick up MATLAB by myself because most programming classes focus on the popular languages (C/C++ and Java), which are in many ways different from MATLAB. MATLAB is a very useful computational tool, but many schools have failed in getting students to pick up MATLAB, mostly because MATLAB is used sporadically on certain courses and there wasn't really a textbook that catered toward first-time MATLAB users.
I have used and looked at over a dozen MATLAB textbooks throughout my undergrad study, and I can confidently say this is by far the best one for anyone to pick up MATLAB from scratch. More importantly, this is the only MATLAB textbook that I have come across that teaches the concept of programming so readers can pick up the basics and start writing their own scripts. Many MATLAB textbooks only teach how to use certain functions/features but fail terribly to impart the fundamentals of MATLAB - something that students really need to know so they can use MATLAB efficiently for their homework/projects/etc.
I was a tutor/teaching assistant for some engineering courses and headed a few MATLAB workshops for BU Students while in college. I wish this book were published earlier - it would have made many students' lives a lot easier.
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41 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Perfect for non-programmers in science, math, & engineering, February 23, 2009
This review is from: Hahn and Attaway Bundle: Matlab: A Practical Introduction to Programming and Problem Solving (Paperback)
I have a Ph.D. in geology and have used several flavors of command-line-based software for the last 15 years, but have never taken a course in programming. As such, I have developed limited skills at writing scripts and basic programs, and have a conceptual idea of how programming works, but usually rely on copying/modifying existing code snippets to get what I want. Documentation for such software commonly assumes the reader is a programmer, which sometimes poses problems if you don't understand certain terminology, and for figuring out how to really use various functions and/or correctly string them together in a program to accomplish a task. When I recently wanted to adopt some code written by a colleague, I realized I would have to learn to use MATLAB. Data manipulation in MATLAB is "similar to but different from" the other software I've used, and although I can parrot example commands, I really wanted to understand what I was doing. I found Attaway's "MATLAB: A Practical Introduction to Programming and Problem Solving", and based in large part on the customer review by E. Tan, I purchased it, and have not regretted the decision.
Attaway's Preface clearly explains that the "purpose of this book is to teach basic programming concepts and skills needed for basic problem solving, all using MATLAB as the vehicle." This book is not primarily aimed at computer science types or accomplished programmers who need to use MATLAB (although it might help make their MATLAB-specific code more efficient) - it's more oriented toward people who need to use MATLAB, but do not already know how to program.
Throughout the book, important terms are typeset in bold and clearly defined. The first section of the book covers basic programming concepts and MATLAB functions, and the second section covers the application of these concepts and functions to things like plotting, image processing, and math. More specifically, the first chapter introduces basic concepts such as what are variables, assignment statements, expressions, characters (text), and vectors and matrices. Subsequent chapters describe programming in MATLAB, starting with simple things like reading and writing files and progressively introducing more complicated concepts (if-else statements, for and while loops, debugging techniques, working with strings (text), etc.). So as you go, you're learning general programming concepts that will translate to other languages, and you're also familiarizing yourself with MATLAB specifically at the same time. There also are chapters on plotting, solving systems of linear algebraic equations, basic statistics, searching and sorting data, and advanced math (curve fitting, complex numbers, and calculus).
The text is straightforward and easy to read, with abundant examples. Sidebars offer quick opportunities to practice your understanding of each concept before moving on to the next one. The end of each chapter contains exercises that allow you to apply what you've learned to some practical sample problems, such as calculating wind chill factor. The author explains some of the differences in terminology between MATLAB and other languages, which will help people more easily apply the programming knowledge learned in this book to other languages (example: a vector in MATLAB is equivalent to what is called a one-dimensional array in other languages). User-defined functions (programs) are gradually described, starting with simple cases (calculating single values) and leading to more complex cases (functions that do tasks that do not return values, or return more than one value).
The physical presentation of the book is very nice - the pages are printed in color on semi-glossy paper, and there is ample room in the margins for notes. I used this margin space to note a case where the MATLAB function in my version of the software differs slightly in name and usage from the one in the book (the author notes that this may be the case depending on the version of MATLAB you're running and the platform on which you're running it).
I'm working my way through the book on my own, and find it easy to do; I imagine it would be quite accessible to undergraduates and graduate students as a supporting text in an analytical methods course using Matlab, or as the primary text for an intro course on using MATLAB in engineering and science.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent professional introduction, March 6, 2009
This review is from: Hahn and Attaway Bundle: Matlab: A Practical Introduction to Programming and Problem Solving (Paperback)
First, a disclosure: I know the author and am a colleague at Boston University.
I used this book when it was still in draft form, to learn Matlab in support of my work as an engineering professor and as an academic researcher. I was trained in Fortran in the late 70's, and had no other significant experience in programming. Nevertheless, a recent new project required me to tackle some challenging problems involving significant matrix computation and instrument control. Matlab was the best language choice for the task, and Stormy's book was my guide. In spare time, a half hour at a time, the book led me through a painless but powerful introduction to the language. I found the examples to be flawlessly presented, and richly informative.
Since completing this book I have integrated Matlab into my teaching and my research, and am grateful to have had Stormy's clear, concise, well-paced introduction as my launchpad.
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