MATLAB Demystified

If you have no prior knowledge of Matlab then this is probably as good as place to start as any. It is a shortish book which you can work through relatively quickly to give you all the basic skills. For more intermediate or advanced uses of Matlab then this book is not going to be any use, but then you wouldn't expect that given its title. The book uses a series of examples to show you basic features of Matlab, which help you learn quickly the commands and more particularly begin to understand the syntax that are so critical to Matlab and other mathematical software.

Other reviews are correct. This book is poorly edited. References are made that are never actually introduced, "punctuation" of code is written incorrectly, and a few things have the "how" explained but not the "why". However, my purpose for purchasing this book was to learn the basics of Matlab (I am a phd student and have NEVER used it before), before I started a class on using Matlab in my field. For that purpose it has been a fine guide. I would NOT suggest this book if you are trying to totally teach yourself Matlab, but if you just want background before either using another book or taking a course, this book is fine. (As long as you can recognize when things are just typos.)

Needed a refresh and reference for work.

This book doesn't make you a genius, but it saved me in a class where all my homework had to be done on Matlab.

Too basic it needs more stats

Astonishingly horrible book. Almost humorous. If you need this book for class a PDF is available through google search. Do not spend money on this. Major mistakes, from wrong chapters for solutions, incomplete formulas, to plenty of misspellings. This book is supposed to be an intro level book which will be frustrating to anyone who has no prior knowledge of MATLAB. You are either experienced enough with MATLAB to see the mistakes, in which the elementary lessons this book tries to teach are of no use to you OR you are so novice to MATLAB that you find yourself overwhelmed, confused and lost due to all the major mistakes. We had this book for class and the teacher was forced to find other supplemental info because the book was that wrong. This book is of no value to anyone. I am amazed it was published.

No problem. Exactly what I needed, and delivered in an incredibly short time.

Overall this book is a reasonable introduction to Matlab 7.x but it tends to drag in places and seem rushed in others. Also, there are enough typographical errors in the examples to make it difficult to arrive at the expected results especially if one is a beginner. For example, the solution to one of the quiz questions in chapter 5 requires the use of the "eval" function which was never introduced in the book. Oddly one of the most powerful features of Matlab, programming, is pasted onto the end of the statistics chapter as a brief introduction whereas it should have it's own chapter and covered in a lot more detail. Also, there are chapters on transforms and curve fitting but strangely no mention of time series. Lastly, quizzes at the end of each chapter often leave out key material introduced in that chapter. Also, the final exam at the end of the book leaves out half of the later chapters. This is an OK book if you want to master the basics of Matlab quickly but on it's own it's not enough. I would recommend the much better Getting Started with MATLAB 7: A Quick Introduction for Scientists and Engineers instead.

Purchased for student who found the explanations very clear

the book is so cheap, it is a nice one for newer to know the matlab and some easy questions, good.

good for beginners

The book was very helpful in starting to write the basic set of code in Matlab. It is a beginners book and wouldnt advice an expert in Matlab to purchase it. I had no clue in Matlab when I bought it and it really helped me.

Not bad but I expected a bit more from it. No Matlab experience is required but it is a bit too basic.