Monday 29 September 2008

Numerical Programming using Haskell and the Glasgow Haskell Compiler

ghc 6.8.3 - the Glasgow Haskell (Optimising) Compiler. Downloaded from haskell.org. Requires more memory than Hugs but programs it produces run much faster. GHC's developer website contains all the bugs/proposals etc present in GHC. Haddock, a doc-generator for Haskell is worth checking out. Pleasantly, the Windows installer adds ghc.exe to your PATH.

Haskell is one of the purest functional languages around. It tries to avoid using state and mutable data, and instead works by evaluating expressions. This lack of state can make it a difficult language for implementing numerical algorithms.

Still -there's no harm trying! Here some interesting papers on this subject - including one that creates some functional codes for quantum mechanics. Also worth keeping tabs on Haskell's mathematics library listage.

Wednesday 24 September 2008

The Use of Super in Python

Read THIS "super" article from Artima.

And the NIFTY vs HARMFUL argument HERE.