Fortran 95/2003 for Scientists and Engineers

The best Fortran Book! I ordered 3 Fortran books written by different authors, Only Chapman's book is best, I am able to follow all the instructions and sample, and easy to understand. Great author, Great book!

It is outrightly silly to rate this excellent book one star and insinuate that it is a terrible write-up. Is it the thin index that makes it so bad, or the explanation of do loops using sin(x) series expansion, according to the first reviewer? If you are a scientist or an engineer (the target audience of the book) you'll probably see the wisdom of such an example instead of counting from 1 to 10 as if we are inside a grocery store. This is an excellent book not just for sake of learning the fortran language but also for writing modern and easily maintanable codes and algorithms. Whether you are a "pure" or "hybrid" programmer, you couldn't ever ask for something more. I am sure the author will subsequently improve the indexing since most people seem to take an offence in that but the contents are just right.Of course Metcalf/Reid (Fortran 90/95 Explained) is also a very good text but is largely for reference purposes. Metcalf/Reid DOES NOT and will not teach you the nitty-gritty of fortran programming. In Metcalf/Reid, you must already have been there in programming, but Chapman will gradually take you to whatever level you deisre, depending on what you need. Very importantly, Chapman sprinkles throughout the text, several scientific and engineering examples and I guess it is why the text was so named in the first place - Fortran 90/95 for Scientists and Engineers. It doesn't matter if you figure that you are way too cerebral and that Chapman is too simplistic for you. If you ever want to venture into programming, chances are that you are not an imbecile and any additional little knowledge gained is always an eternal treasure. This is an excellent text for programming in Fortran 90/95 and you'll be grateful that you did own a copy. Period.

I have found this book to be an excellent, outstanding reference. My only complaint is that the index was occasionally not detailed enough to allow me to easily locate a specific topic for which I was looking; on occasion I've had to page through a section to find what I'm looking for. (This review refers to the first edition, although the second edition is now out so this may have been corrected.) Otherwise, I've found it far superior to the two other Fortran books I've used. It contains many examples. In my view it's excellent as both a F77 and F90/95 reference.

Stephen Chapman has managed to create a book that is indispensable to any engineer who is using the FORTRAN language. "Fortran 90/95 for Scientists and Engineers" is an extremely useful guide and teaching tool, no matter what level you are currently at. Whether you are a first time user or a die-hard FORTRAN expert, you will find this book quite valuable. Chapman has gone to great pains to teach first time users the best techniques and habits. He has also done a stellar job in discussing what changes have been implemented since FORTRAN 77. The discussions on obsolete procedures and techniques are quite useful for anyone who must work with old legacy codes.Many of the most powerful tools in FORTRAN are quite cumbersome and confusing, Chapman has done an excellent job in explaining and demonstrating these tools through his extensive use of examples.This book is superb, and is my one and only resource for FORTRAN programming.

Firstly, this book covers Fortran 90 and 95 in great detail, offering many helpful suggestions to those who are used to older versions of Fortran, such as Fortran 77, and highlighting the differences between the 90 and 95 versions. Where this book shines is in the hundreds of examples of and bits of advice on good programming practice spread throughout the book. It's specifically tailored to those "part-time" programmers, scientists and engineers who do not come from a computer science or software engineering background. Most current (and new) Fortran programmers would benefit greatly by learning the programming style found here. I can't agree with all the advice, however, such as abandoning the basic "real" and "double precision" data types in favor of the new "kind" parameterized types. Still, the philosophy behind such advice is sound, and good programmers will know when and when not to use specific language features. One subject unfortunately missing from the book is programming for parallel processors, and other techniques to speed programs up. But most Fortran programmers don't need to worry about this subject and those who do can get O'Reilly's "High Performance Computing" and Jon Bentley's "Writing Efficient Programs". The examples and quizzes within, and the exercises at the end of, each chapter make this a great textbook. The appendices and index make it useful as a reference book. If you program in Fortran 90 or 95, I'd say this book is a must-have.

This book is an excellent presentation of the capabilities of Fortran 90 and 95. It is detailed enough to cover in depth many programming issues arising in practise, and also summarizes and gives good programming hints, allowing it to be used for quick reference. It also includes many actual source code examples which is the best way to show how all the theory becomes practice. It also includes extensive apendices with descriptions of the intrinsic functions of Fortran. In my opinion one of the best Fortran books that you can find currently.