On Tue, 29 Sep 2015 13:58:21 -0700, Phil Steitz wrote:
On 9/29/15 11:26 AM, Luca Vercelli wrote:
Dear developers,
I think that commons-math lacks support for number theory and
algebra.
In particular, the "primes" package is quite poor, as it only
supports
"int" primes, where some "BigInteger" would be required when
searching
for large primes.
Second fact, for algebra applications, Rings and such would be
preferred
to Fields.
I did some try here:
https://github.com/apache/commons-math/pull/17
I am not opposed to adding some number theory and more discrete math
applications; but in general we have steered away from adding
abstractions just to have them - i.e., our aim is not to provide a
universal math API. We are really an applied math library. We have
always focused on applications, adding the abstractions that we need
to solve the problems that [math] developers and users have in
applications. For example, Field and FieldElement exist because
without them we could not have implemented some algorithms (or more
precisely, we would have had to implement some things separately for
real and complex numbers.) Can you provide some examples showing
how Rings and Monoids would be used to solve applied problems? I am
asking this naively so that we can focus the abstraction that we add
on the problems we are going to solve. In other words, I would be
much happier extending interfaces if I had a problem whose solution
was easier as a result of the added abstraction.
Would it hurt (technically) if the code is more OO?
If "Field" is defined, mathematically, in terms of more basic concepts,
it makes sense to mimic that at the code level.
[Not disagreeing that using those blocks in CM would be welcome.]
I'd suggest that all these classes go into their own to-be-created
package ("o.a.c.m.algebra"?) rather than stay at top-level.
Gilles
Phil
Luca
(Apologizes if this email was sent multiple times)
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