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From: Ada novice on 24 Jul 2010 14:17
Hi,
My interest being purely using numerical methods with Ada, I would
like to know what publications are out there apart the Annex G of the
RM? From what I've seen on the web, we have the books:

1. Scientific Ada, published in 1987
2. Applied Ada, published in 1986

and from an earlier post here on comp-lang.Ada, I saw mention of the
book: Algorithmique numérique et Ada, published in 1994 (This is a
French book). The latter seems to be really unavailable for purchase.
Does any one know where this book can be bought?

Any other books published which focus slightly more on the aspects of
Ada numerical programming?

Thanks
YC
From: Peter C. Chapin on 24 Jul 2010 14:49
On 2010-07-24 14:17, Ada novice wrote:

> My interest being purely using numerical methods with Ada, I would
> like to know what publications are out there apart the Annex G of the
> RM? From what I've seen on the web, we have the books:

I have some interest in this topic as well although currently it's a bit
down my priority list. In any case I'm wondering how necessary it is for
a book to be about Ada specifically. Would any good book on numerical
methods be good enough? The translation into some programming language
(such as Ada) might be an "implementation detail."

Peter
From: Ada novice on 25 Jul 2010 06:41
On Jul 24, 8:49 pm, "Peter C. Chapin" <pcc482...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Would any good book on numerical
> methods be good enough? The translation into some programming language
> (such as Ada) might be an "implementation detail."
>
> Peter

Thanks. Yes I agree that if one learns numerical methods well then
implementing these methods in any programming language would only
require some knowledge of that language. I'm a mechanical engineer and
not a computer guru. A mechanical engineer doesn't usually know about
software engineering methods and at times won't know what data type
would best represent some entity. Records for example are quite seldom
used by people other than computer programmers but yet records can
represent some entities far better than some other data type. In the
book: Ada for Software Engineers by Mordechai Ben-Ari, I saw an
implementation of the Euler method in solving an ODE and I would never
have thought of designing such an implementation. And I'm still
studying it.

So, computer programmers typically will know the best way to code the
solution for a given problem. This is why it's far better to study a
book (dealing with numerical methods) which has been written by a
computer programmer. Though one can expect that the computer
programmer won't go too deep in the numerical algorithms themselves,
one will surely learn a lot on how to think like a computer programmer
when faced with more demanding implementation tasks. And having a good
textbook on numerical analysis is a necessity.

I have seen other books in other programming languages written by
engineers other than in the field of computer science. These books
typically won't contain the most efficient implementation nor will use
the best data types to represent a given entity. Many of engineers
involved with numerical calculations still keep their own Fortran
mentality and when they write a programming book in C for example, you
can easily see how the C codes seem to be a mere line by line
translation of some Fortran codes.


YC
From: Peter C. Chapin on 25 Jul 2010 15:52
On 2010-07-25 06:41, Ada novice wrote:

> I have seen other books in other programming languages written by
> engineers other than in the field of computer science. These books
> typically won't contain the most efficient implementation nor will use
> the best data types to represent a given entity. Many of engineers
> involved with numerical calculations still keep their own Fortran
> mentality and when they write a programming book in C for example, you
> can easily see how the C codes seem to be a mere line by line
> translation of some Fortran codes.

So are you saying that you are looking for a book on numerical methods
that is written by someone who is foremost a software engineer? I can
see your points.

Peter
From: Ada novice on 26 Jul 2010 09:38
On Jul 25, 9:52 pm, "Peter C. Chapin" <pcc482...(a)gmail.com> wrote:

> So are you saying that you are looking for a book on numerical methods
> that is written by someone who is foremost a software engineer? I can
> see your points.
>
> Peter


Yes. A book on numerical methods by a software engineer and a good
reference book on numerical analysis is pretty much what an engineer/
scientist other than working in the field of computer science needs.
There are many books in other languages with titles such as "Language
X for scientists and engineers" but I have yet to find one that
reflects good programming practice with software engineering
principles. Ada is wonderful in that it allows code re-use in a very
elegant way.

YC
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