{"id":3339,"date":"2012-07-16T23:14:11","date_gmt":"2012-07-17T03:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mathgradblog.williams.edu\/?p=3339"},"modified":"2012-07-16T23:14:11","modified_gmt":"2012-07-17T03:14:11","slug":"save-time-software-libraries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/2012\/07\/16\/save-time-software-libraries\/","title":{"rendered":"Save Time With Software Libraries"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do you know a programming language? Do you think you will have to learn one for your research? As a former software developer, I have a few opinons on the subject. First, in line with my general teaching philosophy, I believe it’s boring to learn to program for programming’s sake. Same with learning a new language. When learning a language, you really should have a specific problem you’re attempting to solve (creating a video game, solving a particular equation, making a turtle move<\/a> across the screen). Second, after you learn a language or two, becoming proficient in a new language is a matter of learning the specific idioms<\/a> which allow you to accomplish the tasks you have in mind, as well as studying built-in and popular libraries for the new programming environment. This brings me to my main point, don’t reinvent the wheel<\/a>. Read on if you want to learn about some wheels which have already been invented, that is, libraries and environments for mathematical computation.<\/p>\n

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Suppose you were at a point in your reseach which required results from a computer to continue. The computer program you need to write requires some basic data structure or mathematical object such as a tree or a matrix. It can be satisfying, almost addictive, to write all of the necessary tools from scratch. Be mindful of why exactly you’re writing each piece of code: for fun, to learn the details of a known algorithm or to directly further your research. A straightforward programming task can be fun like a mathematical puzzle, and writing these small programs may be a valuable source of stress relief. Similar to mathematics, if you haven’t seen an argument or trick before you should attempt to prove it for yourself. The programming analog would be building your own toy implmentation of a library function, as you sometimes won’t fully understand and appreciate the existence of a particular software tool until you’ve attempted writing it yourself. But if programming for fun or to learn distracts from progress, it might be time to pull the plug and use a library.<\/p>\n

Why should you prefer libraries to hand-written code? Allow me to make one argument based on language. The mathematical language you would use to write a proof, like other natural languages, contain conventions which provide an informal way to handle various unimportant alternatives. Error handling in software is a giant pain. A second justification is efficiency; there’s a good chance your code will run an order of magnitude slower than a popular available library. Using pre-existing libraries may save time, especially when they provide a service you use frequently. Finally, after familiarizing yourself with an opensource tool<\/a> you may stumble upon the opportunity to contribute back to the project with bug fixes or new features.<\/p>\n

Since I love a good list, I’m going end this post with links to opensource mathematical software you may find handy. Feel free to add your picks, or corrections, in the comments!<\/p>\n

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