From the reviews:
"This volume is the first one in a series of four books on the Mathematica programming language. It is best suited for those who … want to learn the sophisticated tricks of the advanced programming and to use Mathematica up to its full capacity. … The book addresses many features of human-computer interaction. … This book is one of the most valuable sources for the advanced users of Mathematica. … all the science/engineering/computer science/mathematics libraries should have this book and its companion volumes." (Matti Vuorinen, Zentralblatt MATH, Vol. 1080, 2006)
"The Mathematica GuideBook for Programming provided this reviewer with insights into solving and visualizing problems by using Mathematica … . Its wealth of exercises, annotated solutions and integrated bibliographic references should make this set a valuable part of the library of any Mathematica user. I highly recommend it." (Marvin Schaefer, MathDL, August, 2006)
"On the whole, the programming GuideBook provides a comprehensive, step-by-step development of Mathematica programming capabilities and contains an impressive collection of examples and worked exercises. Key Mathematica functions are discussed in detail, using interesting examples and put to the test in real programs. Through experimentation with the DVD, you will become fluent in working with Mathematica expressions, pure and named functions, and gain experience in procedural, rule based, and functional programming." (Willy Hereman, SIAM Review, Vol. 47 (4), 2005)
Customer Reviews & Comments
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Now then - one of the advantages of Mathematica is that it is supported by extensive documentation - both online and in print. Trott's Guidebooks (set of four books - Programming, Graphics, Symbolics and Numerics) is an impressive addition to this literature. These books stand out among the rest of the literature in several respects:
1. The whole set put together must be the biggest Mathematica book around.
2. The books teach Mahtematica through examples. But unlike most other books, the examples are not toy-examples; they are applications of Mathematica to non-trivial mathematical problems. Not only do they teach you Mathematica, they also teach you mathematics!!
3. The above mentioned non-trivial mathematical problems and results are very well referenced. Each chapter ends with an extensive bibliography - usually several hundred references. This further enhances the value of the Guidebooks as books on mathematics, not just Mathematica.
4. Each book comes with a DVD containing the WHOLE SET (yup - you heard it - all four books) as Mathematica notebooks. You can open these notebooks in Mathematica, edit them and experiment with them.
5. There is a piece of Mathematica code on the web-page that incorporates the whole set on DVD into the Mathematica help browser. This feature is just brilliant!!
