
"Matters Computational" - Free Ebook on Algorithms  - silkodyssey
http://www.jjj.de/fxt/#fxtbook
======
Groxx
Very little / super-brief explanation in many cases, but as it's a book _of_
algorithms, not really _about_ , it's acceptable. And I found the brief
demonstrations / explanations / visualizations to be terse, accurate, and
quite explanatory - near perfect. _Not_ a book you can casually peruse, it's
largely a _list of algorithms_ , though it appears to go roughly in order and
build off itself. Where necessary, it goes into a fair bit of detail
(sometimes several pages), but truly most of the code is pretty self-
explanatory once you know the purpose.

Not a book to skim through, but definitely valuable. Uses C/C++ (minimal C++
functionality, classes + templates) heavily, of course, but big shocker there
given that it's largely focused on efficient, low-level code. I'd rather have
functional C than questionable pseudo-code anyway. A little of a language
called GP and a little pseudocode, but very little from a quick skim. My main
criticism here is that the variable names could be more descriptive, often
just a single character or two, but most of the code is small enough that it
doesn't matter, you can do it in your head easily enough.

Definitely a keeper, IMO, unless you despise C.

Disclaimer: I write as little code that looks like this as possible, and have
not examined it in detail. Anyone care to comment on the code library itself?
I'm definitely not qualified.

------
Kilimanjaro
One single html please?

~~~
silkodyssey
There's a single PDF on the page but there's a request to not link directly to
it.

~~~
Kilimanjaro
Don't ask me why but I hate pdfs. That's why I am on a crusade to have all
free ebooks in one single html file, whenever possible.

~~~
harpastum
I get while you don't like pdf, but I'm not sure I understand why you want to
use HTML files. HTML is for web layout, not publishing. I would much rather
have an open format like DjVu[1][2] catch on -- it's like PDF, but has better
compression and is an open format.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DjVu>

[2] <http://djvu.org/>

~~~
Kilimanjaro
HTML is universal and can be edited with any simple notepad. It can look good
if you know how to style it. Also sending them over the wire is easier than
zipping/unzipping folders with tons of imgs/resources.

I've got some books and have put them in one html file, they look good enough
for reading on my laptop, netbook, ipad, etc. So portability and universality
are key.

Here, have a look at some of my private collection, most of Sherlock Holmes
from gutenberg project:

<http://georgenava.appspot.com/ebooks>

And here, a format I've been working on, based on HTML, for ebook publishing
(view source)

<http://georgenava.appspot.com/myfirstbook>

I know purists will burn me at the stake but I don't care, I like simplicity
and that drives my life.

Beware only webkit browsers (chrome,safari) understand my format.

* btw, the only thing browsers like firefox and IE must implement to facilitate one single html file is this:
    
    
      .myimg{content:url("data:image/png;base64,abcdef...")}
    

A way to embed images and resources as data URIs. That's the only trick.

~~~
Groxx
I've had a couple multiple-meg HTML pages on my disk, largely documentation.
So, no images, simple HTML & CSS, etc. _Every_ browser I've tried works longer
than Preview for opening the file vs a basic PDF. Searching also typically
takes longer, and pauses the application while it searches. As much as I
wholly agree that I'd love HTML resources instead of PDFs, it seems browsers
aren't made for things this large, and getting proper display for all the code
& examples & math notation is _not_ easy.

Admittedly, Preview only does a subset of PDF capabilities, and it's one of
the fastest I've encountered, so it's not a wholly fair comparison.

HTML5 + CSS3 makes it easier, because fonts can be embedded, and there's a LOT
more control over many things, and I know of no normal way to do anything like
pagination. And many PDF viewers have interfaces optimized for reading, where
browsers have interfaces optimized for navigation. I _hope_ it's the future,
but it's _not_ the present.

~~~
mahmud
Yes, I had the entire GNU documentation in single html and it's horrible.

