Review by Choice Review
The original version of this book (CH, Sep'86) provided an ideal introduction, guide, and reference for people who required efficient algorithms to perform numerical computations on actual problems arising in science and technology. However, the Pascal programs in that version were "translations from the Fortran," and did not afford the user any of the special features of a program written in true, idiomatic Pascal. The present version corrects that lack, offering the same algorithms, here employing such Pascal specifics as pointers, in the programmed realizations. The question to be answered, therefore, is not whether the book is worthwhile, but whether one should acquire all the various versions (Fortran, C, and now, Pascal). (The authors nowhere state that they do not anticipate versions written in Modula-2, Ada, Prolog, and APL.) The Pascal version is probably the most generally useful. A helpful supplement to this book, providing program drivers and checkout data, is W.T. Vetterling's Numerical Recipes Example Book (Pascal) (rev. ed., 1989), available with diskettes for IBM-compatible microcomputers. -R. J. Wernick, San Francisco State University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
