Re: [boost] c2_functions first submission materials uploaded

From: John Maddock (john_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-03-25 08:57:33

> I have uploaded c2_functions.zip to the file vault.  It contains the
> code for c2_functions (header & source), an html folder with Doxygen
> documentation, and a white paper describing the theory of this
> package.  Anyone who is interested, look over this and let me know
> how the group wishes to proceed.

That's interesting, although I have to admit I think of a particular use
case at present.

I particularly like the idea that the library is effectively doing symbolic
math internally, could the library be adapted to output symbolic derivative
information: so given a formula for f(x) tell you what the derivatives are?

With regard to the interface, it looks quite reasonable to me, questions
likely to crop up during a review are:

1) Why restrict the library to double precision, could it made into a
template that works at arbitrary precision?
2) Would it be possible to make c2function a handle-body class?  The classes
that currently inherit from c2function would then all become implementation
details, and c2function would become a smart ptr to the actual
representation.  The advantage is that you can pass c2functions around
without worrying about it's actual type (a lot like Boost.Function).
Composition of primitives could be handled by non-member free functions, or
by operators:

so given:

c2function a, b;

then:

c2function c = a*b; // does the right thing internally.

3) How easy is the library to extend to new primitives, for example if
someone wanted to add sinh or something would that be straightforward?

4) The library probably needs some concrete use cases to get people
interested :-)

5) Boost has a tuple class, so there's no need to restrict the tuple
interface to python only as suggested in the white paper :-)

That's all I can think of for now,

John.