front matter

 

preface

I wasn’t even going to write this book. Well, I do enjoy speaking at programmers’ events, and I do like writing about geometry, especially online, where I can add interactive widgets instead of still illustrations. But a whole book? Aren’t there enough geometry books already? Does anybody read them anyway?

But then I had a chat with Michael Stephens, an associate publisher at Manning, and he convinced me that first of all, people do read books—even the hard ones, even books on the most sophisticated or obscure topics. Second, there’s a specific interest in a book explaining geometrical concepts to practicing programmers. Programmers will read a book about the geometry but there’s a catch: it has to be a good book.

What makes a good “Something for Programmers” book? Three things:

  • The book has to be applicable. One should be able to easily try out the explained concepts in practice.
  • The book has to be approachable. Modern geometry relies heavily on algebra and calculus, and contrary to the popular belief from the 1970s, not every computer programmer is automatically good at math.
  • The book has to be concise. The programmer’s time is valuable.

To make the book applicable, I gathered a list of practical examples from my own practice and from popular interview questions. Although I write mostly in C++ professionally, I present the source-code samples in Python solely for ease of trying them.

acknowledgments

about this book

Who should read this book

How this book is organized

About the code

liveBook discussion forum

about the author

about the cover illustration