Java for Engineers and Scientists Book

Aimed at the engineering student or scientifically inclined reader, Stephen Chapman's Java for Engineers and Scientists provides a remarkably useful and thorough introduction to Java for anyone who isn't afraid of math. One of the best things about this textbook-style guide is probably its many example problems and exercises drawn from engineering, mathematics, physics, and statistics. The author uses simple examples (and algorithms) to illustrate basic Java programming techniques, all told in a patient, thorough, and extremely comprehensible teaching style. To simplify things, the author includes his own custom classes at certain points for getting you over some missing or hard-to-code features of Java. (These classes include simple I/O classes, graphics classes for plotting data, and a complex number class.) The book certainly does not try to cover every Java feature, but it does cover the Java core API very well, along with Swing GUI basics. This book excels at mathematical processing in Java, with clear explanations of numeric data types, arrays, and complex numbers. It also is very careful to suggest good programming practice from basic design techniques and hints for creating maintainable code (such as correct naming and documentation). There is certainly no shortage of introductory texts for Java. Java for Engineers and Scientists distinguishes itself with not only a lucid style of presentation that perhaps belies its title, but also with its thorough range of examples, most of which will be accessible to anyone with a grasp of high school math or physics. For engineering students or for self-study for those with just a little math knowledge, this title turns out to be one of the best available guides to learning Java. --Richard Dragan Topics covered: Java fundamentals, naming, variables and data types, assignment and mathematical methods, top-down program design, flow control, arrays, graphics and plotting, object-oriented programming basics, inheritance and polymorphism, exceptions, complex numbers, strings, graphics, Swing basics, and file I/O.Read More