Preface

This book was inspired by the following premise ”Java is a great language for developing scientific and engineering applications. It's more powerful and versatile than Fortan or C. It's easier to learn, less redundant, and less prone to error than C++. I have been a scientific programmer at a NASA research center for 18 years . You would think such a place would be on the cutting edge of programming technology, but that is not the case. Most of the technical programmers there still program in Fortran or C. The reason is largely one of inertia. Those languages are what they have always used and they are comfortable with them. Some people have moved over to C++, and slowly but surely people are moving to Java as their technical programming language of choice.

The book is designed to break through the inertia and misconceptions that may have kept you from using Java for your scientific and engineering programming work. It will give you a good foundation in the basics of Java and demonstrate how Java can be applied to solve a number of mathematical analysis problems. The book will discuss migration issues from other languages to Java and provide an introduction to developing GUI- or web-based technical applications.