Re: [boost] Re: Numerical Integration - continued

From: Matthias Troyer (troyer_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-10-24 04:37:05

On Thursday, October 24, 2002, at 11:00 AM, Martin Weiser wrote:

> On Mittwoch, 23. Oktober 2002 21:52, Matthias Troyer wrote:
>> I am confused about the scope of a numerical integration library. It
>> seems that three things are being mixed up here:
>>
>> i) 1D integration of a function with x-points determined by the
>> algorithm (e.g. Romberg integration)
>>
>> ii) Integration of first order ODEs by some algorithm (e.g.
>> Runge-Kutta)
>>
>> iii) Forward Euler integration of an ODE with fixed step witdh delta_x
>> and values of the derivative, given by some external function.
>>
>> While I agree that both i) and ii) would be interesting libraries, the
>> usage case iii) which seems much discussed does not warrant a separate
>> library in my opinion.
>
> Agreed. Let me add that I think the interface to i) is more or less
> straightforward, while the interface to ii) is much more complex and 
> less
> obvious.

I agree fully. One problem for the interface of ii) is that some 
algorithms need more than one starting point. Should this discussion be 
about both topic or should we first focus on the simpler case i)?

Matthias