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Review 2- BASIC PROGRAMS FOR SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS by Alan R. Miller

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Reviewed by Harry E. Pence

Note: This article was scanned using OCR from the 1984 Summer CCCE Newsletter. Please contact us if you identify any OCR errors.

 

Despite my personal interest in Pascal, there is no doubt that for many chemists the computer language of choice continues to be either FORTRAN or BASIC. While working on the review of Miller's Pascal book, I was pleased to learn that he had also written versions of his book in both of these other languages. Although I received copies of these editions too late to examine them extensively, they are both very similar to the original, and so I wished to mention them for the benefit of those who find the description of Miller's book to be interesting, but prefer to work in one of the more traditional computer languages.

In each case, the approach and list of topics covered is almost exactly the. same as that in the Pascal book; however, there are a few significant differences. The most important change is the addition of problems at the end of each chapter. Although the number of exercises provided is still rather small (only a total of thirty) , they should increase the usefulness of the books for both self-study and classroom instruction. As in the previous volume, the author has gone to great lengths to assure that the programs will run on a wide variety of different systems.
 
Unlike the situation in Pascal, there are a number of books available which provide scientific subroutines and ·programs in BASIC or FORTRAN. However, Miller's books do offer a clear well-integrated approach to a large number of useful computational techniques. Chemists who use BASIC or FORTRAN may well find these books to be a worthwhile addition to their libraries.
Date: 
07/20/84 to 07/24/84
1984 Summer Newsletter