Book Review: C++ and Object
                         Oriented Numeric Computing for
                                    Scientists and Engineers
                                                       Anupam Sharma ∗
                                                Fluid Mechanics Laboratory,
                                        General Electric Global Research Center,
                                               One Research Circle, ES-500,
                                                Niskayuna, NY-12309, USA.
                 C++ and Object-Oriented Numeric                   is a good book for readers who have working
                 Computing for Scientists and Engineers            knowledge of C++ and would like to learn to
                 Book Author: Daoqi Yang                           use it for scientific computing.
                 Publisher: Springer-Verlag New York                  Unlike other programming books, this book
                 Pub. Date: July 2000                              does not commence with a “hello world” pro-
                 ISBN: 0-387-98990-0                               gram, but introduces another, somewhat in-
                 Other details: Hardcover, 464 pp. $47.75          volved sample program to explain basic in-
                                                                   put/output (I/O), variable types, iterators,
                                                                   and basic C++ program structure. The first
                   “C++ and Object-Oriented Numeric Com-           chapter provides a very useful, and often dis-
                 puting for Scientists and Engineers” is one of    regarded, discussion on numerical limits of the
                 the few C++ books targeted toward the sci-        basic numeric data types (int, float, etc.) pro-
                 entific community that uses numeric comput-        vided by C++. The importance of recognizing
                 ing as the primary research tool. The book        the “finiteness” of the accuracy of computer-
                 is divided into three parts: the first part in-    generated data cannot be emphasized enough.
                 troduces the reader to general programming           Throughout the book the author presents
                 concepts, the second part focuses on the unique   several programming tips for numeric comput-
                 aspects of C++ as an object oriented program-     ing such as offsetting pointers to easily access
                 ming language, and the third part concludes       band matrices. Section four of chapter Four
                 the book with a description of the C++ stan-      deserves a special mention as it briefly intro-
                 dard libraries on containers and algorithms.      duces some essential tools such as Makefile,
                 The book consists of eleven chapters written      timing programs, and linking C/C++ pro-
                 in 440 pages, and the readers can download        grams with Fortran codes. The description is
                 sample programs used in the text from a dedi-     very concise but is enough to allow the reader
                 cated web-page. The book provides a concise,      to start using these features with his codes.
                 and at some places succinct, description of the      The second part of the book begins with a
                 ISO/ANSI C++ programming language. This           succinct description of classes.  The descrip-
                                                                   tion is too brief for a beginner to absorb all the
                   ∗Aerospace Engineer, AIAA Student Member,       material in one reading. Perhaps all the impor-
                 sharma@research.ge.com                            tant things are covered in this chapter (Chap-
                                                                   ter Five), but they are not repeated or visu-
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         ally emphasized to make a lasting impression        It does not provide examples of scientific us-
         on the reader new to the concept of classes.        age for features such as linked lists, sets, etc.
         The three essential features of object oriented     Examples such as Huffman coding or binary
         programming (OOP): data encapsulation, in-          search trees could greatly add to the content.
         heritance, and polymorphism are only briefly         Interested readers should consider Stroustrup1
         mentioned in this chapter, but described more       for in-depth understanding of these features of
         fully in later chapters.                            C++. In the final chapter, the different ideas
           Theauthorhastriedtoconcludeeverychap-             presented throughout the book are combined
         ter with a section on practical numeric com-        and C++codesfor many linear system solvers
         puting examples such as interpolation, root         are provided.
         finding methods etc., which I found to be most         Overall, the book is very informative and
         appealing.   It is often not the concepts of        useful to people interested in using OOP for
         OOP that users find difficult to comprehend            scientific computing. It does little to motivate
         but the implementation of OOP style for com-        a sequential programmer to choose an OOP
         puting problems. The examples and exercises         style instead.  It could be made more moti-
         in this book are very helpful in this regard.       vating by adding a chapter or a section listing
         The exercise problems are mostly related to         the benefits of using the OOP paradigm (sup-
         the application of OOP techniques to numeric        ported by languages such as C++) over the se-
         computing. They are very “doable” and help          quential programming style (Fortran, C, etc.).
         in understanding the concepts. The book also        Thebookisfairly easy to read and understand
         provides helpful hints to relatively difficult ex-    provided the reader already has a basic under-
         ercise problems.                                    standing of the C++ language. Readers with
           Thediscussion on efficient techniques for nu-       sequential programming experience may also
         merical integration using expression templates      find the last two parts of the book somewhat
         and template meta-programs in chapter Seven         difficult to comprehend because of brevity.
         is a very revealing description of how the ad-        Readers aiming at learning C++ should
                                                                                       2        3           4
         vanced features of OOP can be used with-            instead consider Shtern,    Schildt  or Davis.
         out losing the efficiency of a sequential pro-        Readers looking for a more introductory C++
         gram. The book also mentions a few C++              bookonnumericalanalysis may consider Etter
                                                             and Ingber5 or Bronson6 as optional texts.
         scientific computing libraries such as PETE
         and POOMA, which were being developed                               References
         at Los Alamos National Laboratory at the
                                                                1B. Stroustrup, “The C++ Programming Lan-
         time of publication of the book. A free ver-        guage,” Special Edition, Pearson Education, ISBN:
         sion of POOMA, FreePOOMA is hosted at               0201700735, 2000.
         http://savannah.nongnu.org.      Chapter Eight         2V. Shtern, “Core C++: A Software Engineering
         describes the concepts of inheritance and poly-     Approach,” Prentice Hall, ISBN: 0130857297, 2000.
         morphism, virtual functions, abstract classes,         3H. Schildt, “C++ The Complete Reference,”
         and discusses efficiency issues with run-time         Third   Edition,   Osborne/McGraw-Hill,    ISBN:
         polymorphism and suggest the use of static          0078824761, 1998.
         (compile-time) polymorphism for higher effi-             4S. R. Davis, “C++ for Dummies,” Fifth Edition,
         ciency.                                             John Wiley & Sons Inc., ISBN: 0764568523, 2004.
                                                                5D. Etter and J. Ingber, “Engineering Problem
           The third and final part of the book deals         Solving with C++,” Prentice Hall, ISBN: 0130912662,
         with the standard containers and algorithms         2003.
         in the Standard Template Library (STL) of              6G. Bronson, “C++ for Engineers and Scientists,”
         C++. The explanation provided here is not           SecondEdition, Pws Pub Co, ISBN: 0534950604, 1999.
         at par with the quality of the rest of the book.
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