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From: "E. Robert Tisdale" <edwin@netwood.net>
Subject: Re: The Ada Scalar, Vector, Matrix and Tensor arithmetic library?
Date: 1999/12/06
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Date: 1999-12-06T00:00:00+00:00
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"David C. Hoos, Sr." wrote:

> Yes... but how many runs do you have to make
> with that 5% faster program to make up for one bad run
> because the API was obtuse
> and the programmer got it wrong, as a result?

It's easy to knock down a straw man.
It is much harder to design a standard API
for numerical libraries which limits overhead to 5%
and is both easy and safe to use.
It is much easier to design an API
which makes every implementation
a thousand times slower than it needs to be
and is so obtuse that there is almost no chance
that the application programmer can get it right.

E. Robert Tisdale <edwin@netwood.net>