krj@na.toronto.edu (Ken Jackson) (04/10/89)
NAgMAg Monday, April 10 1989 Volume 89 Issue 7
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%% The official electronic digest of the NAG Users Association %%
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Today's Topics
E01ADF
Advance Notice of a Course on Using the NAG Library
C Libraries and C
A book by Chris Phillips and some hanger-on
Help Systems
%% Editorial
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%%
%% Hi everybody -- I sometimes get the feeling that none of this
%% mail is ever being received -- as you can see another bumper
%% edition (thank you David!).
%%
%% ok appended is my last attempt to generate some discussion in
%% this digest -- if this fails I'll accept that you all just
%% want to be passive partakers of electronic fodder.
%%
%% Tim
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Date: Thu, 23 MAR 89 16:26:05 GMT
From: SUPPORT@leva.icf.leeds.ac.uk
Subject: E01ADF
Many thanks to those who responded to my recent request
for information on the obsolete Nag subroutine E01ADF.
I now have a copy of the documentation.
Ted
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Date: Thu, 30 MAR 89 16:29:50 GMT
From: DAVID@vax.nag.co.uk
Subject: Advance Notice of a Course on Using the NAG Library
UNDERSTANDING and USING the NAG LIBRARY
This course, based at Oxford University, is being offered again
this July (July 10-14) after its successful inauguration in December
last year. It was enthusiastically received by the first course
attendees as having made an invaluable contribution to their
understanding and confident use of the NAg Library.
The course consists of 5 days of lectures and practical computing
sessions covering a major part of the library. The lectures
emphasise the theoretical concepts that are crucial to the
effective use of NAG Library routines and these are brought out
through practical examples in the computing sessions.
Subject areas covered in the course include the solution of systems
of linear and nonlinear equations, constrained and unconstrained
optimisation, curve and surface fitting and the numerical solution
of initial-value and boundary-value differential equations.
For further details please contact:
Dr. A.K.Parrott, UCINA Coordinator, Oxford University Computing
Laboratory, 11 Keble Road, Oxford, OX1 3QD.
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Date: Thu, 30 MAR 89 16:35:13 GMT
From: DAVID@vax.nag.co.uk
Subject: C Libraries and C
"NAG has a C Library" is a marketing shorthand to draw attention to
the facilities we currently offer C programmers:
1) firstly we have a number of C routines available in source form
at various disparate locations (I have one in my own filestore).
2) secondly we are willing to offer a C translation service to those
C programmers who need a special Fortran routine translating into C.
[%% C'mon somebody must want E04UAF :-) ]
3) thirdly we are about to announce the availability of C header
files to facilitate the Fortran library routines to be called from C
programs with parameter checking.
NAG would be very happy to hear of specific user requests in this
area. (We have had a request from the British Standards Institute
for a C version of FPV to include in their validation suite. Would
anyone else want this ?)
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Date: Thu, 30 MAR 89 17:34:28 GMT
From: DAVID@vax.nag.co.uk
Subject: A book by Chris Phillips and some hanger-on
Those of you who attended NAGUA last year will recall seeing an
advance copy of
NUMERICAL METHODS IN PRACTICE
Using the NAG Library
an excellent book written by Tim Hopkins and Chris Phillips and
published by Addison Wesley. I commend it to you.
If, like many people who have spoken to me, you have had difficulty
obtaining a copy of this book you may be pleased to learn that it is
now available from NAG Ltd at 14.95 pounds plus post and packing.
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Date: Mon, 10 APR 89 12:55:54 GMT
From: trh@uk.ac.ukc
Subject: Help Systems
It has come to my notice that IMSL has recently released `an interactive
documentation facility' for its mathematical library. According to the
blurb facilities include `easy use, customizing capabilities for the
individual user, identification of subroutines via keyword search and
GAMS classification, direct output to files, history buffer, review
commands and on-line help'.
My questions
1) Has anyone out there used this system and if so how does it compare
with the NAG help system?
2) What sort of facilities would users like to see added to the NAG
help system?
3) Do users actually use the NAG help system and if so for what
purposes (e.g., just looking up error messages or for serious
routine selection)?
Come on some of you must have an opinion!
Tim
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Reposted by
--
Kenneth R. Jackson, krj@na.toronto.edu (on Internet, CSNet,
Computer Science Dept., ARPAnet, BITNET)
University of Toronto, krj@na.utoronto.ca (CDNnet and other
Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4 X.400 nets (Europe))
(Phone: 416-978-7075) ...!{uunet,pyramid,watmath,ubc-cs}!utai!krj