{"id":2866,"date":"2010-10-22T11:30:16","date_gmt":"2010-10-22T10:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.walkingrandomly.com\/?p=2866"},"modified":"2010-10-22T11:30:16","modified_gmt":"2010-10-22T10:30:16","slug":"recommended-books-for-learning-matlab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/?p=2866","title":{"rendered":"Recommended books for learning MATLAB"},"content":{"rendered":"

Because I spend so much time talking about and helping people with MATLAB, I often get asked to recommend a good MATLAB book. I actually find this a rather difficult question to answer because, contrary to what people seem to expect, I have a relatively small library of MATLAB books.<\/p>\n

However, one could argue the fact that I only have a small library of books suggests that I hit upon the good ones straight away. So, for those in the market for an introductory MATLAB book, here are my recommendations<\/p>\n

MATLAB Guide by Desmond and Nicholas Higham<\/strong>
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\nIf you only ever buy one MATLAB book then this should be it. It starts off with a relatively fast paced mini-tutorial that could be considered a sight-seeing tour of MATLAB and its functionality. Once this is done, the authors get down to the business of teaching you the fundamentals of MATLAB in a systematic,thorough and enjoyable manner.<\/p>\n

Unlike some books I have seen, this one doesn’t just show you MATLAB syntax; instead it shows you how to be a good MATLAB programmer from the beginning. Your programs will be efficient, robust and well documented because you will know how to leverage MATLAB’s particular strengths.<\/p>\n

One aspect of the Higham’s book that I particularly like is that they include many mathematical examples that are intrinsically interesting in their own right.\u00a0 This was where I first learned of Maurer roses<\/a>, Viswanath’s constant<\/a> and eigenvalue roulette<\/a> for example.\u00a0 Systems such as MATLAB are ideal for demonstrating cool little mathematical ideas and so it’s great to see so many of them sprinkled throughout an introductory textbook such as this one.<\/p>\n

The only downside to the current edition is that the chapter on the symbolic toolbox is out of date since it refers to the old Maple based one rather than the current Mupad based system (See my post here<\/a> for more details on this transition).\u00a0 This is only a minor gripe, however, and I only really mention it at all in an attempt to give a review that looks more balanced.<\/p>\n

Full disclosure:\u00a0 One of the authors, Nicholas Higham, works at the same university as me.\u00a0 However, we are in different departments and I paid for my own copy of his book in full.<\/p>\n