MATLAB: An Introduction with Applications

If you are completely new to MATLAB then you will find no better book to guide you through the basics. It is perfectly suited for teaching yourself several basic but still very interesting and useful programming techniques. Topics are presented to the reader in an order carefully determined to produce maximum benefit and knowledge. The book is short and very readable, with many example programs. In short: if you want a FIRST introductory textbook for MATLAB, you can't beat this book. And it covers the latest version (Release 14).

I am sorry to say that the 3rd edition is a great disappointment compared to the 2nd. It is unnecessarily prolix, with a great many typos. The copy editing is so bad that in one place several lines of text are repeated identically. It is difficult not to conclude that the 3rd edition was rushed into print mainly to obsolete the second edition and enrich the publisher. It would be a mistake, I think, to reward the publisher for such ill behavior. Although this edition contains some material not in the second edition, the extra content will not make much difference to a beginning student, and my advice to him or her is to purchase the 2nd edition, used. Neither edition treats structures or cell arrays, so I don't think a reader sacrifices much in the way of content by staying with the 2nd edition. Here's my three-year old review of the second edition - I still like it. This book was written for teaching Matlab to freshmen in an introductory engineering course, so most of the examples are from first year physics and engineering. Nevertheless, after looking at all competing texts, I chose it to teach Matlab to sophomore geology majors, most of whom had not yet taken calculus or physics. I was very happy with the results; by the end of the semester the students were well on their way to being competent programmers, and I think they will find calculus and physics much easier because of their experience with this book. I chose this text because it is very well written--you can tell the author has had long experience teaching the subject--and because of its many excellent examples. Most people learn faster by example than by theory, and the examples in this book are easier to follow than those of other texts. Each example shows the command window with a gray background and white insets, or call-outs, containing explanations. The pages are attractive. In the main text, Matlab commands are set in Courier to clearly distinguish them from the discussion itself. Sections are fairly short and easy to follow, and at the end of each chapter there are many problems of gradually increasing difficulty. The solutions to some problems are given at the back of the book. The abundance of complete examples makes it easy to skip around in the book as soon as students are familiar with Matlab syntax. There are astonishingly few typos and none were serious. Cell arrays and structures are used only where needed for particular commands, a wise pedagogical decision. I particularly enjoyed the second edition's new chapter on symbolic math, as I had never used this part of Matlab in my own research. The book is 7.5"x9.25" in size with 343 pages, and so is easy to carry around. It's inexpensive, as textbooks go nowadays.

A good book for first exposure to MatLab. I found the material to be well written, easy to understand, and organized logically. Many examples were included, and these helped greatly.

If you do not know anything about MATLAB, this is the book you should have at the first step. It teaches you every basic steps and how to apply them to real engineering or mathematical problems in an interactive environment. It has very good screen shots and real world problems to show how to use MATLAB. It reinforces the concepts with quality exercise questions. It is very easy to read and understand. It is absolutely a beginner book not for an advance user.