Sal Mangano

I fell in love with science at a very young age but got hooked on computers and mathematics only much later. I have had most of my professional experience programming complex trading systems in C++ but have more of a personal passion for AI, Genetic Algorithms, pure Computer Science and advanced software development paradigms and certain areas of theoretical math (although my ability on the mathematical side is not quite on par with my passion). My two books XSLT Cookbook and Mathematica Cookbook are about very different technologies but there is a common theme that runs through both XSLT and Mathematica - pattern matching and transformation. This is one of the most powerful paradigms in computer science. I like the cookbook format because word for word, cookbooks are the most useful of all technical books. Cookbooks teach by example and that is how people learn. Cookbooks are about getting things done. Both XSLT and Mathematica are sort off the beaten path type languages and that tells you a bit about me. XSLT is a very particle skill to have if you find yourself needing the deal with XML a lot. If you manipulate XML using straight DOM programming you are really doing way to much work in many cases. Give XSLT a try. Mathematica is probably the single most useful system there is for experimental use of a computer. If you work in the IT industry chance are slim you will ever need Mathematica skills. BUT, if you like to tinker with ideas and data, if you like to explore mathematical and scientific concepts, if you want to know how it feels to discover beauty in a few lines of code THEN you really ought to give Mathematica a try. This used to be an expensive proposition but Wolfram has a fully functional HOME Edition of Mathematica. At about $300 it is probably the single best software investment you will ever make. If you are a student, it is even less.