arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Ronald F. Boisvert.
This paper provides some reflections on the field of mathematical software on the occasion of John Rice's 65th birthday. I describe some of the common themes of research in this field and recall some significant events in its evolution. Finally, I raise a number of issues that are of concern to future developments.
The rapid and widespread adoption of Java has created a demand for reliable and reusable mathematical software components to support the growing number of compute-intensive applications now under development, particularly in science and engineering. In this paper we address practical issues of the Java language and environment which have an effect on numerical library design and development. Benchmarks which illustrate the current levels of performance of key numerical kernels on a variety of Java platforms are presented. Finally, a strategy for the development of a fundamental numerical toolkit for Java is proposed and its current status is described.