MATLAB

I bought this book because I saw the good reviews about it here. I just started to learn Matlab, so what I really need is a book that can describe things clearly, and STEP BY STEP. When I was reading the first chapter, which is a small Matlab tutorial (The authors stressed that the readers should walk through chapter one), I got so frustrated because there are so many functions and procedures I don't know and the authors don't explain (They defend this in their preface though). I moved on to the rest of the book and I found that it happens everywhere: this book keeps jumping on some fancy math subjects without explaining clearly the fundermentals. They didn't bother to explain the syntax for lots of programs.
I gave up on this book. What I had to do is find a online tutorial to get me started. I did find one good tutorial from University of Dundee, you can search its website in google. I am going to keep Matlab Guide in case I need it some time. But for starters, look elsewhere.

Matlab Guide is a clearly written, well structured and quite comprehensive account of the capabilities of Matlab. In each chapter, the material explained swiftly progresses from the simple to the more complex, making this book a concise source of information and an excellent reference for the intermediate to advanced Matlab user. The focus is on mathematical topics; the pieces of example code are a nice mixture of playful toys and serious applications. Also, the book contains important hints concerning efficient programming, it has a very agreeable layout, and the citations at the end of each chapter do their job in keeping the reader's mood at a high level. Clearly, absolute beginners may have a hard time working their way through it, and the coverage of isolated topics, like file input/output, is a little meager. However, this is only a minor point. All in all, so far having used matlab primarily for data analysis (electrophysiology) I very much enjoyed and benfited from a fresh look at it from a different perspective.

This is a book that doesn't ignore that MATLAB is a tool for mathematicians, but at the same doesn't alienate the non-specialist.

Starting with a basic tutorial and continuing with useful short cuts and introductions to script files, functions and graphics this book gives the reader an immediate working knowledge of the basic functions and data structures of MATLAB.

Later chapters address linear algebra (with treatment of eigenvalue problems, linear systems and matrix decompositions) and numerical methods (for differential equations and other problems); both with enough mathematical background and each topic can be accessed independently.

The book finishes with important topics such as optimizing functions, input and output, use of the Symbolic Toolbox and a final chapter with more tricks and tips.

You are left convinced that the authors are extensive users and admirers of this software, and through this book the reader can become the same.

This book has a rather unique style... it's broken into 27 mini-lectures split across three main 'topics': Learning MatLab, Advanced Programming, and Applications. Each mini-lecture constitutes a some 2-10 or so pages where they describe a particular problem and its solution on the left side of the page and list the Matlab code to solve that problem on the right hand side. They don't usually give much motivation for _why_ you might actually care about that particular problem, but if it's not reasonably self-evident (as in the case of the Learning/Advanced Matlab), most of the solutions are so compelling that it opens your eyes to ways to solves other problems that you might have never thought of before. Note that the authors assume that, for any given problem, you already have a grasp of the concepts involved. I.e., when they discuss eigenvalues and eigenvectors, the emphasis is on their use to solve a problem, but they assume you already know the definition of the 'pieces.' The applications are usually at the level of an advanced undergraduate or graduate level curriculum (i.e., they are not trivial).

What you get is a TREMENDOUS amount of information in 218 pages. It's not trying in any way to be a complete reference to Matlab, but instead is trying to get you just enough information about lots of very different aspects of programming and applications that you'll have no problem filling in the details for yourself. Hence, I wouldn't recommend it for beginners, but if you've already played with some other math package (or Matlab itself) and have an idea as to the basics, you can become a much more proficient 'power user' with this book.

At the end of many mini-lectures, there are various 'exercises' for the ready to complete. Happily, the solutions are included in the back of the book! In the applications section, the exercises are not always particularly Mathlab related but instead are intended to get you to solidify your understanding of, say, SVD so that you don't just trust the tool blindly. As the exercises form a valuable type of feedback, it makes the book quite usable for self-instruction.

I don't think there's such a thing as a 'perfect' book that tries to address so many topics while keeping the page count reasonable, so while I can't give this particular attempt 5 stars, it's as good as any other I've seen and the price is quite reasonable for what you get.

I would reservedly recommend this book to someone who is teaching this a course in MATLAB and needs to come up with some example problems. Other than that this book is not very useful. In is indexed poorly and I have not found much here that one cannot find in the help menu or tutorials. I take pity on the poor college student who has this book as their only reference.

If you do not know anything about MATLAB, this is the book you should have at the first step. It teaches you every basic steps and how to apply them to real engineering or mathematical problems in an interactive environment. It has very good screen shots and real world problems to show how to use MATLAB. It reinforces the concepts with quality exercise questions. It is very easy to read and understand. It is absolutely a beginner book not for an advance user.