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Use of Math Languages and Packages in Research?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the using-the-right-tools-for-the-job dept.

CEHT asks: "As a research programmer at the university, I have encountered numerous times when I need to choose which language(s) or package(s) to use for different projects. Tradeoffs and performance issues have to be considered: results from one package may be more compatible with the data from other researchers, another package may find the solution faster and use less resources, and so forth. Maple, Matlab, Magma, and Mathematica are among the most well-known packages. Libraries such as IMSL is also popular. Of course, there are smaller (and mostly free) packages that tend to target specific types of problem, such as LiDIA, Singular, and LAPACK. The question is, how useful are these [and other] math packages? Do researchers use only one or two packages for most of their projects? Or do people like to mix things a little by pulling the strength of different packages together to solve a math problem? If not, do researchers write C/C++ programs and use GMP or Matpack to solve math problems?"

6 of 454 comments (clear)

  1. Heh ... by B3ryllium · · Score: 4, Funny

    I use `expr`.

  2. Re:Perl Data Language by liquidsin · · Score: 4, Funny

    What a wonderful idea! Perl is so terribly simple to read that it *needs* some highly complex math thrown in to keep us from getting bored.

    --
    do not read this line twice.
  3. Re:Octave by GlobalEcho · · Score: 2, Funny

    Although Octave is great to mimic Matlab 5.2, some neat features in Matlab 6.0 are not there yet.

    Three-dimensional arrays come to mind. Grrr.

  4. Be Careful Though by sstory · · Score: 3, Funny

    About keeping important bits of paper. I have MathCAD Pro 2000, and an upgrade to MathCAD 2001, both of which set me back nicely, (though I usually need Mathematica) and when I switched computers in December it was all useless because I can't find the serial number to my MC Pro 2000 disk.

  5. Back in the old days... by cachorro · · Score: 2, Funny
    Back in the old days, we were lucky if we had three significant digits. Most times we only had one or two. And sometimes we didn't have any significant digits at all.

    Have you ever tried to build a pyramid without any significant digits. You kids have it so easy these days.

  6. Re:This might be useful ... by CanadaDave · · Score: 1, Funny

    What's a Gentoo laptop? Is this some new laptop company? Does it run Linux? If not, is anyone trying to hack it to run Linux? I wonder if anyone has done any Gentoo laptop case mods. Hopefully they'll be something on Slashdot about it soon.