Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!csun!Twg-S5!abcscnuk
From: abcscnuk@Twg-S5.uucp (Naoto Kimura (ACM))
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: Roots of polynomials
Message-ID: <1990Dec9.141206.11193@csun.edu>
Date: 9 Dec 90 14:12:06 GMT
References: <2173@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> <1990Dec5.175558.29859@dg-rtp.dg.com> <1990Dec6.192941.1215@urz.unibas.ch> <1990Dec7.140547.2976@watserv1.waterloo.edu> <1990Dec8.182611.1221@urz.unibas.ch>
Sender: news@csun.edu (News Administrator)
Organization: csun
Lines: 29

In article <1990Dec8.182611.1221@urz.unibas.ch> fritz@urz.unibas.ch writes:
>In article <1990Dec7.140547.2976@watserv1.waterloo.edu>, dmurdoch@watserv1.waterloo.edu (D.J. Murdoch - Statistics) writes:
>> In article <1990Dec6.192941.1215@urz.unibas.ch> fritz@urz.unibas.ch writes:
>>>
>>>For a lot of numerical problems I can STRONGLY recommend the book
>>>
>>>  NUMERICAL RECIPES IN PASCAL -- The Art of Scientific Computing

If this is the book that I think that you're referring to, I wouldn't
recommend it for the pascal code, as it is mostly a literal translation
of the FORTRAN code (even down to the GOTO's).  Although the authors
claim that the code was thoroughly tested and assure that it conforms to
standard pascal, the code is really only guaranteed to work in Turbo
Pascal (there are a lot of assumptions made in the code).  The
identifiers used throughout the programs are very cryptic, and lots of
unused identifiers and labels are strewn throughout the code.  I haven't
taken a look a the C version of the book, but I suspect it's going to be
similar (another literal translation from FORTRAN).

Some parts I would disagree with (like claims that the Heapsort is the
BEST sort, and sorts like the Shell sort aren't worth discussing).

Some sections are pretty good, like the one on random numbers.

                //-n-\\			 Naoto Kimura
        _____---=======---_____		 (abcscnuk@csuna.csun.edu)
    ====____\   /.. ..\   /____====
  //         ---\__O__/---         \\	Enterprise... Surrender or we'll
  \_\                             /_/	send back your *&^$% tribbles !!