Back in the game: Numerics in D

[Lars T. Kyllingstad]

Norbert Nemec wrote:
> Hi there,

Hi!

> [...]
> 
> I am currently considering to apply for an academic research fellowship 
> that would allow me to work full time on the development of a numerical 
> library for D. The core of this work would be the implementation of 
> multi-dimensional numerical arrays and array expressions similar to what 
> NumPy does in Python. It would remain to be seen how much can be done as 
> a library and what should be done at a language level. Ultimately, I 
> believe D could achive support for numerical programming with the 
> comfort, simplicity and expressiveness of Python and the performance of 
> Fortran.

I completely agree.  And I really don't think there is a lot more that 
needs to be done with the language -- I find D code as easy to read as 
Python code, and more elegant.  The performance issue is a matter of 
allowing the compilers to mature, which will happen now that D2 is frozen.

Personally, I have a strong belief that D could and should replace 
FORTRAN and C(++) as the language of choice for numerical scientists.


> [...]
> 
> In any case, I would really love to see a strong community for numerical 
> computing arise around D!

Me too.  I have the privilege of being able to use D in my PhD work, and 
as such I have written and ported a few algorithms.  Recently I made 
them available on dsource:

   http://www.dsource.org/projects/scid

SciD contains, among other things,

  - numerical differentiation functions
  - a complete D port of QUADPACK
  - incomplete ports of MINPACK and NAPACK
  - convenient wrappers around some LAPACK functions

Unfortunately, I don't have time to work full time on this -- mostly I 
just add things whenever I need them for work.  But if someone, such as 
yourself, set out to create a comprehensive scientifice library, I would 
definitely be interested in contributing.

There are others in the community who have published scientific code as 
well.  dsimcha's dstats library and Bill Baxter's MultiArray have 
already been mentioned.  Yet more are listed at:

   http://prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?ScientificLibraries

-Lars