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Numerical Recipes Example Book (C) (Second Edition) by W Press &

ISBN: 0-521-43720-2       Publisher: Cambridge University Press       Pages: 325pp       Price: £19-95.

Numerical Recipes in C (Second Edition) by W Press & Recommended

ISBN: 0-521-43108-5       Publisher: Cambridge University Press       Pages: 994pp       Price: £35-00.

Categories:   maths     algorithms

Reviewed by Francis Glassborow in C Vu 5-3 (Mar 1993)

The main text has been well researched and is the most comprehensive coverage of Numerical Algorithms that I know. Full explanations of the algorithms are presented together with C source code to implement them.

The purpose of the 'Examples' volume is to allow you to see many of the algorithms in use as this often helps with your use of them in your own programs.

There is a disk available for IBM PC and PS/2 compatibles which would be particularly useful to regular users of numerical algorithms. The use of this disc is marred by the general copyright notice (which includes an eccentric clause specifically forbidding transfer to a different type of machine - eccentric because it is exactly in the field of numerical computing that the reader is most likely to be using some other platform).

Purchasers of the books are granted a specific general license to use the contents for themselves, any other use requires some form of license from the publisher and the quoted terms include use in PD software. While I understand some of the arguments put forward such restrictions and have no doubt that the publishers are generous with granting licenses, I do not find them acceptable. If you buy a DIY book on decorating you do not expect to be restricted to using the methods given to your own property. Frankly I think the costs of administering any copyright scheme will far exceed the beneficial revenue. In reality most people will ignore it and thereby become just a little more inured to breaching copyright.

If numerical algorithms play any part in your work you will go and buy this book even if you already have the first edition. (see also: combined review - Algorithms in C .)