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=0.2 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,5c4627b775acf6be X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: dvdeug@x8b4e53cd.dhcp.okstate.edu (David Starner) Subject: Re: The Ada Scalar, Vector, Matrix and Tensor arithmetic library? Date: 1999/12/05 Message-ID: <82cors$9281@news.cis.okstate.edu>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 556823731 References: <38497235.D8339C38@netwood.net> <82btoo$8201@news.cis.okstate.edu> <82buhr$8q61@news.cis.okstate.edu> <38498EB1.306427C8@netwood.net> <82c7mu$a2g1@news.cis.okstate.edu> <3849E314.6281FC6D@netwood.net> Organization: Oklahoma State University User-Agent: slrn/0.9.5.7 (UNIX) Reply-To: dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1999-12-05T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: On Sun, 05 Dec 1999 03:59:16 +0000, E. Robert Tisdale wrote: >David Starner wrote: > >> On Sat, 04 Dec 1999 21:59:13 +0000, >> E. Robert Tisdale wrote: >> >> > No one actually cares how matrix libraries are implemented >> > except that the implementation should be optimized >> > appropriately for the target platform and problem domain. >> >> Sure, but the way of doing that for Ada >> is most likely not a wrapper around a C++ library. >> It's more likely to be use inline generics. > >Who said anything about a C++ library? Your first message mentioned an Ada binding to a C++ library. >The library might be implemented in Ada, Fortran, C, assembler >or any combination of programming languages. >All Ada applications programmers care about >is what they should write to access the library. No. I develop programs. I care about * The license of the library I'm linking to * The size of the program * The number of libraries the users will need * If the users will already have them * The compilers users will need * How portable it is For example, I probably wouldn't use a multiple precision library written in Caml, that's 2/3 MB. Portability issues, the users would need OCaml, the size, etc. I would use libgmp, even if it was slower and the interface was much worse. >But it is a very bad way to get a standard API. >It's better to design an API that liberates library developers >to implement the library as they see fit. I disagree - it's better to design an API that lets programers do what they need, and lets library developers make a efficent implementation, even if they don't have much choice in how to do it. For example, the C function memcpy has a decent interface, but there is one way to implement it. I fail to see how changing that would improve memcpy. >> There is no reason you can't take any API >> and design a implementation around it. > >Sure you can if you have unlimited resources >and don't care about performance. >But most programmers who write numerical applications >expect their code to run as fast and efficiently as possible. That's a non-sequitor. If an API for a numeric library is commonly used, it will be that for an efficent library. Hence, there will be a way to write to that API efficently. -- David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org I see no trend at all, except toward women playing mean and ugly sociopaths who are good at killing and who enjoy dark powers. Maybe it's just my friends? -- Dr. Kromm, on who plays what type of character in RPGs