From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,c7f5c70275787af8 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Gautier Subject: Re: Scientific calculations (was Re: Ada vs Delphi? ) Date: 1999/08/13 Message-ID: <37B3D81D.A6A0210B@maths.unine.ch>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 512184744 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <37ab421a.5414989@news.total.net> <37ab8bd1.0@news.pacifier.com> <37ae1fc8.653954@news.clara.net> <7os9j4$fs7$1@nnrp1.deja.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1999-08-13T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: MathCAD and Mathematica are nice... for *small* size calculations. There are many problems with these programs for doing *numeric* (not symbolic) calculations: - as it's interpreted, with dynamic formulas, it's *hyper-slow*: colleagues here did calculations that lasted ~one day on a 200Mhz machine with Mathematica, often interrupted by crashes or endless garbage collections. Compiled (Ada or Fortran) on a 500Mhz AXP, it lasted a few seconds... - even the latest Mathematica has enormous precison problems (surely due to weak typing...) - the methods are hidden and proprietary: no way to see their bugs or what "'epsilon"s they really use. - with non small problems, these user-oriented programs begin to panic very early (virtual memory, garbage collection etc.) - no way to customize the classical methods (my present work...) -- Gautier -------- http://members.xoom.com/gdemont/