Howdy folks, I have been lurking here for quite a while and I figured it was time that I ask some questions that have been bouncing around my head. This summer I had the pleasure of being part of the Google Summer of Code, working under the umbrella of The Perl Foundation on Math::GSL, a Perl interface to the GNU Scientific Library (which is written in C).
The XS binding are generated via SWIG, and integrating this into the build process of Module::Build was complicated and error prone. And I still have all kinds of platform-dependent code to generate the correct linker flags in my Build.PL . What are peoples thoughts on making the addition of build elements to Module::Build (possibly via plugins) as painless as possible? I have been in communication with Eric Wilhelm and will try to devote some time in the near future to make SWIGifying a CPAN module not so damn complicated. I recently gave a talk at the Advanced Topics Portland LUG about using SWIG in a CPAN module, slides are available here: http://leto.net/gitweb/?p=presentations.git;a=blob_plain;f=CreatingCPANModulesWithSWIG/pres.pdf;hb=HEAD As for Math::GSL, it is a smorgasbord of scientific-computing-related functions, so there should be something for everyone. The newest version (0.12) was uploaded to CPAN minutes ago and should be filtering its way to a mirror near you. There are over 60 different random number generators, vectors, matrices, BLAS, a 2x faster sort routine as well as specialty sort routines, numerical integration and differentiation, histograms, over 500 special functions/statistics distributions, Fast Fourier transform, the list goes on.... For those of you that rely on PDL or Cephes for functionality, this is a new option. If you use Math::MatrixReal and are needing more speed, Math::GSL::Matrix may be something to look at. Also, Math::GSL now compiles on Mac OSX, Linux/BSD and Windows/Cygwin. If there are any more questions about how you can benefit from Math::GSL, please do not hesitate to ask. Also, if you try Math::GSL and goes boom, please send a bug report to me personally or via RT. Thanks! Cheers, PS: Useful links Math::GSL blog: http://leto.net/code/Math-GSL/ Google group: http://groups.google.com/group/math-gsl-dev My gitweb: http://leto.net/gitweb/ -- [---------------------] Jonathan Leto [EMAIL PROTECTED]
