Saturday, August 1, 2009

No Sleep `Till Book Done

A rap about my experience writing Mathematica Cookbook...

(Sing to the tune of "No Sleep `Till Brooklyn by The Beastie Boys)

(chorus) No sleep 'til - Book Done

Editing unsettled - but I got mettle
Laptop running hotter than a boiling kettle

My job's ain't a job - it's a damn hard time
Ideas to code - runnin' overtime

Some frustration - but it’s my vocation
Sal and the boy's skippin' vacation

Itchy index finger but a stable work table
I do what I do best because I'm willing and able

Ain't no faking - not money I'm making
Going page to page - so there's no mistaking

I'm still at the job working nine to five
So it takes more time for this to go live

(bridge) No sleep 'til –

Another chapter - another train
Mathematica code flyin out my brain

Another edit - gotta make it right
This proof-reading may go all night

My editor's cool - he continues to trust
That it'll get done, it must, it must!

Writing and typing - I code around the clock
Can't publish this book til I gen clean Doc

I'm thrashing 8 cores and making a giant file
Getting parallel code to work can take a while

Map, Apply, ListConvolve and Position
If a pattern don't match, I first Partition

I got a recursive func that blew the stack
So I used Fold – it’s less a hack

(repeat bridge)

(repeat chorus)

Making Sparse Arrays, so I'm using Band
To see all the powers, I use Expand

Schooled and work in Brooklyn - U.S.A.
Alpha did not know, so I showed it the way

Write Function with Slot - match expression with pattern
If I use AstronomicalData, I can find Saturn

Got Greeks, Graphics, Reaps and Sows
Blanks, and Slots, Plots and Shows

I got Mathematica so get out of my way
Filtering some data, I use Fourier

Learning a lot but I get no sleep
Cause I'm writing this Cookbook eight days a week

(repeat chorus)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Any words on the publication date? TOC? Intended starting audience level (novice/intermediate) ?

Sal Mangano said...

I can't nail down the publication date. There have been some technical problems surrounding production but we are beginning to deal with them so I am hopeful. Producing a book with a large number of equations and graphics is not easy!

The Audience is intermediate as with most cookbooks but the book has a lot to offer a beginner as well.

I'll post the TOC next week.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Sal,

I was surprised to see the publication date being pushed back to January, at least on Amazon. If I remember correctly it was supposed to come out in November.
From what you are describing in your blog and on the O’Reilly website, it seems to be a good addition to my bookshelf.
Looking forward to seeing the table of contents.

Best regards,
C.