Stormy Attaway - MATLAB

Fourth Edition

Stormy Attaway

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Boston University

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First published 2009

Second edition 2012

Third edition 2013

Fourth edition 2017

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ISBN: 978-0-12-804525-1

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This book is dedicated to all of my family: my mother Jane Conklin, my sister Catherine Attaway, my brother Banks Attaway, my stepmother Robyn Attaway, and my husband Ted de Winter.

The purpose of this book is to teach basic programming concepts and skills needed for basic problem solving, all using MATLAB as the vehicle. MATLAB is a powerful software package that has built-in functions to accomplish a diverse range of tasks, from mathematical operations to three-dimensional imaging. Additionally, MATLAB has a complete set of programming constructs that allow users to customize programs to their own specifications.

There are many books that introduce MATLAB. There are two basic flavors of these books: those that demonstrate the use of the built-in functions in MATLAB, with a chapter or two on some programming concepts, and those that cover only the programming constructs without mentioning many of the built-in functions that make MATLAB efficient to use. Someone who learns just the built-in functions will be well-prepared to use MATLAB, but would not understand basic programming concepts. That person would not be able to then learn a language such as C++ or Java without taking another introductory course, or reading another book, on the programming concepts. Conversely, anyone who learns only programming concepts first (using any language) would tend to write highly inefficient code using control statements to solve problems, not realizing that in many cases these are not necessary in MATLAB.

Instead, this book takes a hybrid approach, introducing both the programming and the efficient uses. The challenge for students is that it is nearly impossible to predict whether they will in fact need to know programming concepts later on or whether a software package such as MATLAB will suffice for their careers. Therefore, the best approach for beginning students is to give them both: the programming concepts, and the efficient built-in functions. Since MATLAB is very easy to use, it is a perfect platform for this approach in teaching programming and problem solving.

As programming concepts are critically important to this book, emphasis is not placed on the time-saving features that evolve with every new MATLAB release. For example, in most versions of MATLAB, statistics on variables are available readily in the Workspace Window. This is not shown in any detail in the book, as the availability of this feature depends on the version of the software, and because of the desire to explain the concepts in the book.

The changes in the Fourth Edition of this book include the following:

Use of MATLAB Version R2016a

A new chapter on Object Oriented Programming, and its use (as of R2014b) in the graphics objects

The new App Designer, which may eventually replace GUIs and uses object-oriented programming

The new Live Editor, which creates Live Scripts including text, equations, plots, and code

Modified and new end-of-chapter exercises

More conceptual end-of-chapter exercises

Reorganization of chapters and sections within chapters to make it easier to focus on programming concepts in order to cover more of the book in traditional courses

More coverage of data structures including categorical arrays and tables

Increased coverage of built-in functions in MATLAB

The most important and unique feature of this book is that it teaches programming concepts and the use of the built-in functions in MATLAB, side-by-side. It starts with basic programming concepts such as variables, assignments, input/output, selection, and loop statements. Then, throughout the rest of the book many times a problem will be introduced and then solved using the programming concept and also using the efficient method. This will not be done in every case to the point that it becomes tedious, but just enough to get the ideas across.

Another key feature is that the book takes a very systematic, step-by-step approach, building on concepts throughout the book. It is very tempting in a MATLAB text to show built-in functions or features early on with a note that says well do this later. This book does not do that; functions are covered before they are used in examples. Additionally, basic programming concepts will be explained carefully and systematically. Very basic concepts such as looping to calculate a sum, counting in a conditional loop, and error-checking are not found in many texts but are covered here.