🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Sep27.022750.8620@leland.Stanford.EDU> Laurence James Edwards:
> Wow! I had forgotten what a godly book Preparata&Shamos is.

In article <1992Sep28.083843.23616@dutrun2.tudelft.nl> Han de Bruijn:
> Bad taste.

In article <1992Sep28.231335.10973@leland.Stanford.EDU> Laurence James Edwards:
> While I wouldn't recommend it for recreational reading, Preparata&Shamos does
> present a comprehensive and coherent account of computational geometry,
> and I think it is the first book devoted to the subject.

Trivialiter, because Preparata&Shamos are the _inventors_ of "Computational
Geometry". Same story with "The Fractal Geometry of Nature", by Mandelbrot,
which is, equally trivialiter, the "first" book about fractals.

Actually, the stuff covered by Preparata & Shamos IMNSHO barely justifies the
creation of a new, separate, area of investigation. A most important part of
it (Voronoi tesselation) is nothing new & belongs to classical mathematics.

In article <5C1-w=_@engin.umich.edu> Samer Takriti:
> I have received many answers referring to "Computational Geometry,
> an introduction" by Preparata and Shamos. Thanks.
> It looks to me that he methods proposed by this book can be applied
> in R^2 only. Applying these methods in higher dimensions would 
> increase the complexity of the algorithm (exponential complexity).

The book doesn't contain obvious generalizations to multiple dimensions
in the first place. Even worse. Solutions in 2-D are presented in such a
way that a generalization from that point to, say, three dimensions is
made impossible beforehand. One shouldn't use specific properties of the
plane (like orientation of angles) in a theory that could be generalized
to three and more dimensions. Overall, the attacks presented in the book
are quite unprofessional. Any experienced programmer could do better.

Godly book? You know what godly books are? Here is a list of my ultimate
favorites:

- "The Feynman Lectures on Physics, part III"
- "The Theory of Radiation" by Max Planck
- "The Special Theory of Relativity" by Albert Einstein
- "Relativity Reexamined" by Leon Brillouin
- "Le phenomene humaine" by Teilhard de Chardin
- "Das Kapital, part 1" by Karl Marx
- "Buitenaardse Beschaving" by Stefan Denaerde
-  And, oh well, The Bible itself ...

Preparata&Shamos, or Mandelbrot, will never be in that list.
-- 
* Han de Bruijn; Applications&Graphics | "A little bit of Physics * No
* TUD Computing Centre; P.O. Box 354   | would be NO idleness in  * Oil
* 2600 AJ  Delft; The Netherlands.     | Mathematics" (HdB).      * for
* E-mail: Han.deBruijn@RC.TUDelft.NL --| Fax: +31 15 78 37 87 ----* Blood