New Java math libraries due -- ADTmag

New Java math libraries due

By Will Kilburn
June 11, 2003

As Java continues to move to maturity, developers will benefit from new Java math libraries that have been time-tested in Fortran and C environments. For example, Visual Numerics, San Ramon, Calif., has announced the release of JMSL Numerical Library Version 2.5 for Java.

Formed in 1970, Visual Numerics' first product supported Fortran, still prominent in supercomputers and the longtime language of choice for the complex mathematics required by industries such as aerospace, defense and weather forecasting. The company now wants to bring that higher math into largely uncharted territory, according to COO Phil Fraher.

"Engineers have had the ability to make use of some pretty sophisticated technologies, and yet anyone in the business community who looks at these would run for the hills," said Fraher. "Statistics and math are usually the most hated classes in school because this stuff's tough.

"Our mission is to facilitate the quick discovery of new insights, and/or previously unknown relationships between variables, for fast, accurate decision-making," he added. "We want to take data and help people do big-time forecasting, futuristic 'what if' scenarios and visual representation[s] (sample, below) like those engineers have used for many years.

"We believe we can do that through capitalizing on Java as is starts to emerge more and more into the enterprise," Fraher said.

Fraher said that the move toward Java, which began in the summer of 2002 with versions 1.0 and 2.0 of the firm's product, should increase the ability of different team members to collaborate on data.

"The base Java language and classes were not strong enough to handle complex numbers," said Fraher. "So where we have a competitive advantage is by building this layer, what we call our JMSL foundation layer, to enable Java to handle more sophisticated mathematics."

Links:

Visual Numerics
www.vni.com/index.html

For other Programmers Report articles, please go to www.adtmag.com/article.asp?id=6265