Re: [Boost-users] [Review] ODEInt review starts today, September 19, ends September 28

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] [Review] ODEInt review starts today, September 19, ends September 28
From: Paul A. Bristow (pbristow_at_[hidden])
Date: 2012-09-27 12:24:56

> -----Original Message-----
> From: boost-users-bounces_at_[hidden] [mailto:boost-users-bounces_at_[hidden]] On Behalf
Of
> Steven Watanabe
> Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2012 5:14 PM
> To: boost-users_at_[hidden]
> Subject: [Boost-users] [Review] ODEInt review starts today, September 19, ends September 

> Please always state in your review, whether you think the library should  be accepted as a Boost
library!

 Yes.

> Additionally please consider giving feedback on the following general topics:

> - What is your evaluation of the design?
Not qualified but has obviously had a lot of real-life use.

Modern expression templates are de rigeur. Works with Boost.Units which is a big plus. Also meshes
with Fusion and Arbitrary Precision types so will presumably work with the recently accept
Multiprecision library.
And providing support for GPU and parallelization may be a killer advantage for speed.   (Until the
'ultimate' way of generating GPU code is produced, there will be too many options, but that's
progress for you).

> - What is your evaluation of the implementation?  Not qualified to judge, but the extensive set of
working examples gives confidence that it can't be bad.   Mature. Must be several people using 'in
anger', always a good sign.

> - What is your evaluation of the documentation?
Good.  Looks nice. Tutorial examples are excellent in scope and number.

There is a lot of stuff there (everything you need to know even), but I worry about users finding
what they want to know.  A PDF version would allow a global search as a proxy for an index.  This
should be easy to produce.

An (auto) index would be useful and could be very easily added?  

> - What is your evaluation of the potential usefulness of the library?
An essential tool for almost all numeric fields from astrophysics to economics.

> - Did you try to use the library?  
Sadly no.

> - How much effort did you put into your evaluation?
A quick (re-)reading of the docs? 

> - Are you knowledgeable about the problem domain?  Very faintly.

Paul

---
Paul A. Bristow,
Prizet Farmhouse, Kendal LA8 8AB  UK
[phone]  07714330204
pbristow_at_[hidden]