Re: [boost] Demand for Boost libraries - was Math tools polynomial enhancements

Subject: Re: [boost] Demand for Boost libraries - was Math tools polynomial enhancements
From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2015-11-01 16:11:18

On 11/1/15 1:46 AM, John Maddock wrote:

> One of the problems here, is that tools like Mathematica (and hence
> wolframalpha) are just so darn good,

> it would be nice if these tools
> could produce C++ code as output to save on the cut-and-paste, but
> really they're going to be very hard to compete with.

Hmm - I'm not seeing this. for the questions being asked - take the
symbolic derivative - there is only one answer. How can one tool
be better than another?

> I also worry somewhat about blindly using a black-box solution - if you
> use a template metaprogram to calculate the first N derivatives and
> evaluate them, how do you know that they're actually numerically
> stable?

we have that same problem with all the TMP stuff - and with normal user 
code !  At least with library code we have all our eggs in one basket - 
and we can watch the basket!

> Sometimes casting a mark 1 eyeball over the formulae can save a
> lot of grief later (and sometimes not of course).

 > OK, so there are
> intervals, but those have issues too.

Ahhh - more feature creep!