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Summary: a single useful reference book in numerical computing
Review: "Numerical Recipes in C" is a collection of standards problems in numerical computing with solution explanation and code. Topics include but not limited to linear algebra, inter/extrapolation, FFT, integration, random arithmetic, sorting, minimization, eigen-algebra, statistics, and differential equations. I find this book extremely useful as a reference guide in writing efficient algorithms. Not code itself, but the description of the problem and the solutions is of importance. I do not even program in C anymore; and I also think that nobody should copy the code verbatim from any book into the production system without notice of style, reference and optimization. My copy is so worn-out now, that I should probably buy a new one :-) Enjoy!!
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Summary: Software ASCII source on CD-ROM and other software
Review: Contrary to another review, the source code in ASCII text is available on the CD-ROM, but one needs a Windows platform to unpack it. I was able to compile the small set of software I tried in MS VC++ 6.0. Its arrays are 1-based, and it uses mostly floats instead of doubles. I saw no comments in the code; I got the impression that helps to sell the book. The code also makes heavy use of preprocessor macros. Those who want better code should refer to the Guide to Available Mathematical Software (GAMS) at http://gams.nist.gov/ GAMS-referenced software might be higher quality code, but this Numerical Recipes book is very valuable in understanding the algorithms, especially if you do not spend a large part of your professional life engrossed in their details. This book is much more understandable than the other texts on Numerical Algorithms I have read; it frequently is even enjoyable-- a rarity in such texts.
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Summary: aman garg
Review: Excellent book for anybody who ever needs to use numerical method
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Summary: simply the best
Review: excellent book! yes, the code is C and ugly C at that; yes, it's old fashioned and probably FORTRAN-like; and, yes, more often than not, I find myself editing the code to bring it to C++ level. however, it's not really the point of the book, is it? make no mistake, this IS the book of recipes. in an unlikely event a reader needs to go beyond the level of sophistication of the book, he or she will be likely to understand what's going on. the opposite is true more often: you need a quick solution to get some insight into the problem, and the book gives you what you need and more. the authors really knew what they were doing, because in the situation where quick means bad they give their reader a high quality solution (case in point: random number generators). and though you can read the book online, having one on your table is very useful too. the best book you can get on the subject!!! highly recommended.
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Summary: useful book with limits
Review: i agree with other reviewers that the C codes are ugly --- more than an issue of 0 or 1-based arrays. the codes really don't take advantage of the language. since the book was first written for Fortran and it became quite a success, the authors gave me an impression that they quickly published one in C using a translator maybe FOR_2_C just to make money, cause some codes are not suffificiently debugged. also the chapter on PDE leaves a lot to be desired. in fact, it's the weakest chapter in my opinion & next to useless for anyone who wants to solve PDE systems of bigger size than homework problems. however, this is a minor gripe as many topics are out of scope for a recipe book.
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Summary: The art must be in the algorithms, it is not in the code...
Review: I cannot judge the algorithms and their implementations, I suppose they are good. But the code the give is absolutely horrible. Not to industrial standards at all. No matter how brilliant the content, it is the code you buy this book for. I hope they tested it thoroughly, cause it is bad. My advice to the writers: have the code rewritten using templates (STL). Just translating Fortran to C won't do on this level.
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Summary: A great Reference Book
Review: I find this a good place to start when I want to build routines. I have had no problems with their code and find it easy to modify when I need to.
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Summary: Proprietary source the Achilles' heel for non-students
Review: I first bought the FORTRAN version of this text in 1994 while doing scientific programming for graduate school work. I've been able to do a lot of basic research quickly with NR codes, and I still occasionally use NR's routines. The authors have certainly done a good job assimilating a lot of material in the NR series. Since other reviewers have done well to highlight the importance and utility of this landmark series, there is no need to repeat those sentiments here. I also agree with earlier reviewers applauding this title more as a survey or reference work and less as a library of source code. However, to this title's detriment, the authors actually consider the NR series to be a proprietary library of source code more valuable than the explanatory text surrounding it (one can in fact download the text on-line from the publisher though it's hardly worth the hassle). This perception is ironic since the authors confess that "the lineage of many programs in common circulation is often unclear," and many details of presentation, ideas, and algorithms are clearly "borrowed" from other excellent (some now out-of-print) numerical methods books or journals. Unfortunately, much of the source code in the 1993 C edition appears FORTRANish and is not very efficient as far as the C language goes (one would hope that improvements are coming in the new C edition, ISBN 0521574382). However, even the original FORTRAN NR routines occasionally adopted bizarre and/or obviously inefficient programming structures - over time I decided that this was probably done to make these algorithms appear as so not to obviously plagerize other published material. Many programmers try to get around this by reworking the NR codes. Apparently the authors consider modification of their sometimes inefficient code "derivative works" (even bug fixes) which cannot be legally redistributed or even used on more than one machine at a time without purchasing a new license or book. As a student, NR's legal disclaimers regarding derivative works never bothered me and I was willing to overlook the sometimes unpolished source code insofar as it functioned properly. But as a professional, I now find the lack of fair-use provisions on uncompiled, derivative source way too restrictive to rely on them in good conscience. I have since expanded my numerical methods library to other references supporting true public-domain codes. With an expanded basis of comparison, I regret to say that I am becoming less and less impressed with NR's implementations and explanations. I am finding some of NR's algorithms to be inefficient or unnecessarily approximate, and - on rare occasion - buggy. There have been quite a few bugs uncovered over the years, although the NR web site has done a good job of keeping track of them. In closing, this book is excellent for students wanting a good reference for quick and dirty types of analyses or scientific computing. Professional programmers, scientists, engineers, specialists or analysts performing research would be well advised to reference this title, but ultimately they will likely need to rely other resources if they require efficient and/or unrestricted (public-domain) source codes for their work.
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Summary: Great compilation of numerical routines for C programmers
Review: I found this book indispensible in my effort to develop profitable trading systems for futures and options and in my research in factor analysis and, more recently, in chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia. Anyone who programs in C or C++ and works with mathematics must have this book. It covers a surprisingly wide range of algorithms: routines are included for everything from handling Julian dates and solving systems of linear equations to determining eigenvectors and singular value decompositions, solving differential equations, doing numerical integration (quadrature), not to mention calculating fast fourier transforms, lomb periodograms and maximum entropy spectral analyses. While not always state-of-the-art, the routines are quite reliable (when used correctly), clearly-written, and easy to understand and use. I would strongly recommend this book (and the companion software) to anyone who programs in C and is literate in mathematics. I always keep a copy nearby.
Jeffrey Owen Katz, Ph.D.
Author: "The Encyclopedia of Trading Strategies" (McGraw Hill, 2000)
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Summary: Check GNU Scientific Library first
Review: I give the book 4 stars to maintain the current level. I own a Fortran copy of NR, but like the other authors, I like NR for the explanations of algorithms, but not for the code. There is a VERY good alternative to Numerical Recipes in C, namely GNU Scientific Library. You can find the source code and manual from: http://sources.redhat.com/gsl/ or http://www.gnu.org/software/gsl As typical GNU software, GSL is licensed under GNU General Public License, so it is ABSOLUTELY free ! You can download it, modify it, linked it with your own code, without feeling guilty of copyright violation (Not in the case of NR, NR comes with a copyright license to prohibit modification and linking). GSL is written in C from scratch by its author. The design is modern, much better than NR in C, and also allowed linking with C++ or modern scripting language like Python. Some of the leading authors have background in theoretical physics and astrophysics, just like NR authors. Check it out. You lose nothing to check GSL first, you may ended up saving some $$$.
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