Preface
Many books have been written on the C++ programming language, varying across
a spectrum from the very practical to the very theoretical. This book certainly lies
at the practical end of this spectrum, and has a particular focus for the practical
treatment of this language: scientific computing.
Traditionally, Fortran and M
ATLAB®
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have been the languages of choice for
scientific computing applications. The recent development of complex mathemati-
cal models—in fields as diverse as biology, finance, and materials science, to name
but a few—has driven a need for software packages that allow computational sim-
ulations based on these models. The complexity of the underlying models, together
with the need to exchange code between coworkers, has motivated programmers to
develop object-oriented code (often written in C++) for these simulation packages.
The computational demands of these simulations may require software to be writ-
ten for parallel computing facilities, typically using the Message Passing Interface
(MPI). The need to train programmers in the skills to program applications such as
these led to the development of a graduate level course C++ for Scientific Comput-
ing, taught by the authors of this book, at the University of Oxford.
This book provides a guide to C++ programming in scientific computing. In
contrast to many other books on C++, features of the language are demonstrated
mainly using examples drawn from scientific computing. Object-orientation is first
mentioned in Chap. 1 where we briefly describe what this phrase—and other re-
lated terms such as inheritance—mean, before postponing any further discussion
of object-orientation or related topics until Chap. 6. In the intervening chapters un-
til object-orientation reappears, we present what is best described as “procedural
programming in C++”, covering variables, flow of control, input and output, point-
ers (including dynamic allocation of memory), functions and reference variables.
Armed with this grounding in C++ we then introduce classes in Chaps. 6 and 7.In
these two chapters, where the main features of object-orientation are showcased, we
initially, for the sake of clarity, abandon our principle of using examples drawn from
scientific computing. Once the topics have been presented however, we resume our
strategy of demonstrating concepts through scientific computing examples. More
advanced C++ features such as templates and exceptions are introduced in Chaps. 8
and 9. Having introduced the features of C++ required for scientific computing, the
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MATLAB is a registered trademark of The MathWorks, Inc.
v
try_sjjy2014-12-05非常好的书，非常值得一读
