Re: [boost] [math] calculate derivative automatically.

Subject: Re: [boost] [math] calculate derivative automatically.
From: Hervé Brönnimann (hervebronnimann_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-03-11 07:58:39

No, your messages are coming through fine (4, 6, 8, and 9 of March).

I think the lack of response might be indicating of the lack of  
interest, but people are too polite (or too busy) to tell you in such  
blunt terms.  I almost hesitate to do so myself, because I wouldn't  
want you to be discouraged or feel like you've been dismissed out of  
hand.  I've always found the people on boost to be the most  
courteous, and wouldn't want to depart from this honorable  
tradition.  I've also found that there are a lot of people out there  
who may not share my opinions or interests, and that's fine too.  But  
I see you're starting to invest valuable time and might not  
appreciate not being told in the long term.

Speaking for myself (and myself only) from now on,  I didn't bother  
replying because it seems to me that you are simply misguided.   As  
someone said, it is technically feasible.  Almost anything is.  But  
that doesn't mean it should be done (esp. bearing in mind the cost of  
developing a good solution to your problem).  I appreciate that the  
engine may work for you but it's a long way from being of general  
interest, and even if it were, I doubt it would belong to boost.   
It's very likely that the simplification step will be much more  
complicated than you think.  Already, even commercial products (I  
played a bit with Maple) find this to be a very hard problem.  And  
the techniques they use, including unlimited precision integers,  
numerical methods, Grobner bases, etc. are all *way* out of scope for  
something like boost.  Anything simpler-minded is likely to answer a  
much simpler problem for which the best solution is simply to compute  
the derivative by hands (or non-C++ means) and plug it in.

If I really want to invest more time into this problem, would  
strongly recommend you try contacting other, more specialized,  
mailing lists, like yacas if it is still in active development.

Again, those are my opinions only, for what it's worth.
Respectfully,
--
Hervé Brönnimann
hervebronnimann_at_[hidden]
On Mar 11, 2009, at 6:41 AM, Dongfei Yin wrote:
> BTW: I am wondering whether I do something wrong, there is no  
> responding about this subject for a long time.
>
> Dongfei.
>
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