The reading list for scientific programmer

c++ c fortran scientific-computing
leon picture leon · Nov 4, 2009 · Viewed 14.1k times · Source

I am working to become a scientific programmer. I have enough background in Math and Stat but rather lacking on programming background. I found it very hard to learn how to use a language for scientific programming because most of the reference for SP are close to trivial.

My work involves statistical/financial modelling and none with physics model. Currently, I use Python extensively with numpy and scipy. Done R/Mathematica. I know enough C/C++ to read code. No experience in Fortran.

I dont know if this is a good list of language for a scientific programmer. If this is, what is a good reading list for learning the syntax and design pattern of these languages in scientific settings.

Answer

Tim picture Tim · Nov 4, 2009

At some stage you're going to need floating point arithmetic. It's hard to do it well, less hard to do it competently, and easy to do it badly. This paper is a must read:

What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating-Point Arithmetic

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