Abraham A. - An Introduction to Mathematics for Computing and IT Practitioners

Not only is themathematics explained, but it is placed in context. The topics covered by this book include algorithms, flowcharts,recursion, matrices, discrete graphs, sequences, series, searching, sorting,probability, simulation, Venn diagrams, number systems, binary, Booleanalgebra, logic gates, character codes, UTF-8, Hamming Codes, MIME Base64, IPaddresses and Subnetting. Many of these topics are not routinely taught within mathematicalqualifications and could be of interest to mathematicians wishing to discoversomething new. The book includes a combination of explanation, examples,questions, algorithms and codes examples. Simple diagrams are used to helpillustrate certain points and to highlight the values of data when workingthrough a number of steps. Tables of values are provided for ease of referencewhen converting between number systems, referencing character codes values andto help with creating subnetworks.

Examples are used to help demonstrate how to apply themathematics to a given problem and form part of the explanation for each concept.There is a section of questions at the end of each chapter which are intendedto help the reader check that the concepts have been fully understood. Theanswers are in Appendix 3 at the end of the book. Many of the answers are fullyworked through and can be used to give more detail and further explanation tothe concepts within the book. Algorithms are used throughout computing and form the basisof determining how data is processed within an application. Several of thesections use algorithms to explain how a calculation is performed. They aredisplayed using a standard notation which is explained in section 1.2.

Chapter15 contains a number of additional algorithms which may be of interest to thereader. Coded examples are included for some of the topics todemonstrate how the calculations could be implemented within a computerprogram. The examples are in JavaScript. Although there are many differentlanguages which could have been used, JavaScript is relatively easy and quickto use as it can be added into a web page and run using a web browser. The useof JavaScript also complements studies in client-side programming. The section below describes how to run the code examplesusing a web browser.

Alternatively, the JavaScript examples can be run usingthe tool on the resources page of my website www.mathsandcomputing.com. Please note that this book is purely an introduction to thissubject and many of the concepts are described in their simplest form. Thereader may then wish to go and explore a specific topic in more depth.