[SciPy-user] Any Books on SciPy?

[Darren Dale]

On Wednesday 28 February 2007 06:29:38 am Steven H. Rogers wrote:
> Fernando Perez wrote:
> > On 2/27/07, John Hunter <jdh2358 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On 2/27/07, Robert Love <rblove at airmail.net> wrote:
> >>> Are there any good, up to date books that people recommend for
> >>> numerical work with Python?
> >>>
> >>> I see the book
> >>>
> >>>     Python Scripting for Computational Science
> >>>     Hans Petter Langtangen
> >>>
> >>> Does anyone have opinions on this?  Is it current?  Are there better
> >>> books?
> >>
> >> I specifically do not recommend this book -- I own it but in my
> >> opinion it is outdated and is more a collection of the author's
> >> personal idioms than the current common practice in the scientific
> >> python community.   For numerical work in python most people use
> >
> > I happen to share John's opinion, and I also have a copy of this book.
> >  While it's technically correct, well written and fairly comprehensive
> > (probably /too/ much, since it's a bit all over the map), I strongly
> > dislike his approach.  Much of the book uses his custom, home-made
> > collection of scripts and tools, which you can only download if you go
> > to a site and type a word from a certain page in the book (a simple
> > 'protection' system).
>
> Concur with John and Fernando.  I found a copy in a local bookstore and
> bought it because it _is_ the only book covering the subject and I
> wanted to show that there is demand for such material.

I did the same thing, and came to the same conclusion about the book.

I haven't seen anyone mention "Numerical Methods in Engineering with Python" 
by Jaan Kiusalaas. It was published in 2005, and uses numarray, so it is 
somewhat dated considering all the impressive developments with NumPy and 
SciPy. I mention it for the sake of completeness.

Darren