Mastering Simulink 4 (2nd Edition)

Rating:
Summary: A brief introduction, certainly not "mastering Simulink"
Review: I have been using Simulink ever since it's born in early 90's. I got this book because I have "Mastering Simulink 2" from the same authors. Few years ago, Simulink official manual is poorly written in the sense that a lot of important information were left out. "Master Simulink 2" was useful then. Starting Matlab 6, MathWorks has put in a big effort to roll out its official manuals, especially on Simulink 4. Therefore, this new book has little value (no more information) on top of the existing manuals.

This book has a few nontrivial c-mex file examples that are pretty much the only useful pages I can get some benefits from. The official manual "Writing S-Function" covers a lot more detailed materials to show user how to write c-mex, Fortran-mex, Ada-mex files with Simulink, which is the essence of building any real world design applicaiton. The book did not talk about Simulink Performance Tools, which is a very useful side product to work with Simulink.

Overall, for any beginner who can not access the official MATLAB 6/Simulink 4 manuals, this book is a good choice to solve some simple "textbook" problems. But I doubt anyone can learn much from this book to accomplish serious, pratical, and real-world design applications.