Introduction to Programming With Mathematica/Book and Disk [Hardcover]

Richard J. Gaylord (Author), Samuel N. Kamin (Author), Paul R. Wellin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1993 | ISBN-10: 0387940480 | ISBN-13: 978-0387940489 | Edition: Book&Disk

An Introduction to Programming with Mathematica is the first book published expressly to teach Mathematica as a programming language to scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and computer scientists. This text may be used in a first or second course on programming at the undergraduate level or in a Mathematica-related course in engineering, mathematics, or the sciences. It is also intended for individual study by students and professionals. The text does not assume familiarity with Mathematica nor does it require any prior programming experience. The book and diskette contain over 200 exercises drawn from many areas of science, engineering, mathematics, and computer science. The 3 1/2'' diskette included with this book can be read by UNIX, IBM-compatible, NeXT, and Macintosh computers. The diskette includes Notebooks and packages containing the code for all of the examples and exercises in the text, as well as additional material extending many of the ideas in the text. The packages will run on any computer running Mathematica and the Notebooks will run on any computer that supports Mathematica Notebooks. Version 2.0 or later of Mathematica is recommended for maximum use of the diskette.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 302 pages
• Publisher: Springer-Verlag; Book&Disk edition (September 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0387940480
• ISBN-13: 978-0387940489
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,529,306 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Out of date...but still can be useful, March 1, 2002

By 

Dr. Lee D. Carlson (Baltimore, Maryland USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: An Introduction to Programming With Mathematica (Hardcover)

Mathematica is now in version 4.1, and this book was written in the time of Version 2.2, but it still could be read profitably if cognizance is made of the significant additions made to Mathematica since 2.2. The "Lispy" nature of Mathematica is still the same, and it still ranks as one of the easiest and most powerful of languages to program in. The authors have done a good job of introducing the reader to the subtleties of Mathematica, and they are honest in their explanations, pointing out the areas where using Mathematica might be problematic. A person getting started in Mathematica will no doubt want to read something that is more up-to-date, but this book is designed for such a reader and it has a lot of interesting ideas of how to apply the language.
One of the better features of the book includes the discussion on functions. The functional programming paradigm is one that I favor the most, and which is most transparently used in Mathematica. The authors do a good job of explaining anonymous functions in Mathematica and how to create the famous "one-liners" that Mathematica is famous for.
Another topic that is treated very well by the authors is recursion. Mathematica is mostly easily programmed using recursion, and the authors show, starting with the Fibonacci numbers, how to "think recursively". Readers who know Lisp will of course find the discussion very easy to follow.
A third edition of this book is in order, again since Mathematica has changed considerably since this book was written. More discussion on performance issues in Mathematica would be welcome, and also more examples and applications, along with more discussion on how to link Mathematica to external programs.