[MATRIX-SIG] Regression tests

[Kevin Rodgers]

At 01:51 PM 2/21/98 -0800, Bruce Duncan wrote:
>
>I hope that in the next release of Numeric there are more extensive
>regression tests and more warnings if (when) things go awry.
This would indeed be nice.

>In the interim, I've used SWIG to wrap some routines from
>Numerical Recipes in C.  These routines may not be as fast, but
>may be more reliable.  For scientific computations, the reliability
>of the core numeric programs is CRITICAL.

It is generally known, but apparently not as well known as it should, that
most of the exposition in NR is acceptable, but usually the specific
routines are at best naive and at worst egregiously wrong.  There's an
excellent page out there (see http://math.jpl.nasa.gov/nr/ for details)
that lists many of the problems with NR.  Bottom line: don't use NR for
anything that approaches mission-critical, and always check the NR
algorithm with another source to verify correctness.

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Kevin Rodgers     Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical  krodgers@tdyryan.com
"This one goes up to eleven."  --  Nigel Tufnel
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