Re: Recommendations for a programming book?
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg55805] Re: [mg55752] Recommendations for a programming book?
- From: Clifford Martin <camartin at snet.net>
- Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2005 03:12:09 -0400 (EDT)
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
David, I do believe that David Wagner's "Power Programming with Mathematica. The Kernel" is a good book. He has a nice section on writing packages. It's a bit dated also but I still use it and find it a good book. Trott's book takes a bit of getting used to. I believe it is a good reference (I found things in there I found no where else, including Wolfram's book) so I'm glad I bought it. Good luck. Cliff PS I've learned more on this list than any other single source! --- David Kirkby <david.kirkby at onetel.net> wrote: > Has anyone got any recommendations for books on > Mathematica programming > - i.e writing packages for a set of routines you > develop for your own > (or others) use, packing them together properly, > documenting them for > the user etc? Insuring routines that are used > internally (private) in > your package are not visable to the user when he/she > reads it in to > their Mathematica session, whereas the ones you > intend (public) are > fully documented. > > I have the book "Programming in Mathematica" by > Roman Maeder (1989), > based on version 1.2 of Mathematica. This assumes > some familiarity with > the program, so does *not* start with 1+1=2. I like > the book, but > thought it might be a bit dated now - remember my > copy is 6 years old. > > I thought perhaps there would be something to be > gained by a more up to > date book than the old copy of Maeder's I have, So I > bought "The > Mathematica Guidebook for Programming" by Michael > Trott: > > http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0387942823/qid=1112651074/sr=8-4/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i4_xgl/026-8217107-8364418 > > but it was not what I expected. My mis-understanding > of the title I > think. The first example in the book is > > In[1]:= 1+1 > > Out[1]= 2 > > and then seems to repeat much of what there is in > Steven Wolfram's book > "The Mathematica Book" > > The book seems to have a huge number of unnecessary > references - there > is over 1100 references in the introductory Chapter > 1, and other > chapters have hundreds of references each. > > I only got the book today, so have not looked at it > carefully, but it > certainly does not fill the gap I was looking to > fill. It does however > look quite a reasonable introduction to Mathematica, > and is a little > more manageable in size than the official book - > although still quite big. > > PS for anyone in the UK thinking of buying this > book, or the Mathematica > book by Wolfram, I suggest you click on the "New and > used" section of > the Amazon site. Often there are dealers in the USA > who will ship a new > copy of the book to you for a *lot* less than Amazon > UK sell it for > directly. > > You can save over £8 on the Mathematica Book, and I > saved twenty odd > pounds on the Trott book. It seems strange Amazon > providing links to > dealers undercutting them by a lot, but I guess they > get some share of > the profits when you buy via the Amazon site. > > > -- > Dr. David Kirkby, > G8WRB > > Please check out http://www.g8wrb.org/ > of if you live in Essex > http://www.southminster-branch-line.org.uk/ > >