Ask for advice on an old book

Question

Is there anyone who read Roman Mader "Programming in Math"? Is this useful or outdated for the WM8 user? Please provide me some comments on this old book.

Answer 1

This is still one of Mathematica's best programming books, emphasizing a good programming and practice style (choice of 3rd edition - published in 1996). Here you can find my opinion on this book in a more expanded form.

Just remember that what you find in Maeder’s book is a very elegant description of the main language, but not from many modern additions. Important things regarding the main language that you will not find there include:

• Packed and Sparse Arrays
• Integrated String Manipulation Operations
• Reap and Sow
• Modern ways of handling options: OptionsPatern , OptionValue , FilterRules .
• Compiler Mathematica ( Compile )
• Not a lot of performance tuning tips (there are some, but this is not much emphasized).
• Not a lot of debugging tips

In addition, the main language aside, it does not contain any coverage of what was added to the language after 1996 (this will include dynamic interactivity, parallel computing), which is ironic since this part was developed by Maeder, new areas of integrated functionality, new Compile features, etc.).

However, I highly recommend this book. In my opinion, it can be called "Zen of Mathematica programming". It's not quite easy to read, and I think I read (parts) of it at least 10 times, each time realizing something that was not explicit before (maybe it's just me dumb). It is also a great resource for writing packages, and as such is probably still unsurpassed. I would not recommend it as the first Mathematica book, but you won’t have much without reading this book.

Answer 2

It is at least unsatisfactory that there are no new books in the main language, nor are there new editions of the books of Wagner and Madera. I read “Programming in Mathematica” 3 years ago only once, since I borrowed it for 2 weeks, but my pure impression was that I really needed this best expert book. Strictly to the question: it is not only useful for the WM8 user, but the more M-functionality is becoming more and more. I believe that this classic book should be read more, because it is a pure M-framework, not deals with the details of specific implementations, which today is even more important for such a comprehensive system.

His (R.Maeder's) is another "Computer Science with MATHEMATICA" is very good and almost 12 years old, but not aimed at the core M.

I find the Sal Mangano M Cookbook to be newer to the intermediate reader, its disadvantage is that it is a bit confused, and its style is not very convenient for a deeper understanding.

The third edition of Mathematica in action by C. Wagon is a really beautiful book, but more about Mathematica applications. Someone wrote about this, that every page was gold, and I am close to this opinion.

M. Trott's impressive 4-volume book was supposed to be updated with dynamic interactivity and other new features in versions 6+, but you can read August 2008 on its web page: although Mathematica Version 6 is released, GuideBooks update takes more time than predicted. Therefore, instead of having new versions in the summer of 2008, the expected date is in 2009. " There is still no new version.

Taking into account all the above, I believe that the book by Leonid Shifrin is very necessary for the Mathematica community, and I hope that there will be paper editions.

I found that in all M-books the chapters on pattern matching and rule-based programming are quite short, while the general opinion is that the full potential of Mathematica can only be used to master both functional and programmatic programming, and they are both worthy of a whole monograph.

Answer 3

If you decide to read Roman books, you will be left with a very solid Mathematica foundation. I read two of them (PIM and CSM) and, like their elegant and concise style, both in programming and in language. I had the pleasure of talking with Roman, and I know very few people who have such a deep understanding of the language of mathematics. The novel was one of the first language designers. My two cents. Do not go, but run to get copies.