January 2008
Intermediate to advanced
384 pages
8h 1m
English
IN THE PREFACE I told a short story about FORTRAN programmers who could only solve problems using loops and a LISP programmer who could only solve problems recursively. This is not uncommon because we love the tools we know. Let me tell a joke instead of a story: A mathematician, a physicist, and a database programmer were all given a rubber ball and told to find the volume.
The mathematician carefully measured the diameter and either evaluated the volume of sphere formula or used a triple integral if the ball was not perfectly round.
The physicist filled a beaker with water, put the ball in the water, and measured the total displacement. He does not care about the details of the shape of the ball. ...
Read now
Unlock full access