Re: [boost] Math functions - requirements 'spec'

From: Matt Austern (austern_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-11-09 13:48:02

On Tue, 9 Nov 2004 16:36:02 -0000, Paul A Bristow
<pbristow_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> Nonetheless, many thanks for your thoughts and helpful suggestions.

Actually, I was thinking that I should really tell you what would be
my most helpful suggestion: *if* your goal is to get this
standardized, as opposed to producing a library for Boost users, then
what you should probably do first is get in touch with P. J. Plauger
and convince him of one of two things: either (a) this won't be as
hard to implement as he thinks it is; or (b) even if it is that hard,
it'll be worth it.

What we hard from him in Redmond was (paraphrased): Dinkumware is one
of the few companies in the world witht he expertise to do
high-quality implementations of mathematical special functions, it has
finally finished implementing the special functions from TR1, and it
took about a solid year of work.  Having looked at your proposal,
Dinkumware thinks that implementing it would take at least another
year.  Numbers like that scare people.

If you can convince people that Dinkumware's numbers are off by a
factor of ten, then people might be more enthusiastic.  Ultimately
that will involve a conversation between you and P. J. Plauger, so
it's probably better for you to talk to him directly instead of having
me trying to be a messenger.