A Comparison Between Differential Equation Solver Suites In MATLAB, R, Julia, Python, C, Mathematica, Maple, and Fortran
September 26 2017 in C, Differential Equations, Julia, Mathematica, Mathematics, MATLAB, Programming, R | Tags: | Author: Christopher Rackauckas
Many times a scientist is choosing a programming language or a software for a specific purpose. For the field of scientific computing, the methods for solving differential equations are one of the important areas. What I would like to do is take the time to compare and contrast between the most popular offerings. This is a good way to reflect upon what’s available and find out where there is room for improvement. I hope that by giving you the details for how each suite was put together (and the “why”, as gathered from software publications) you can come to your own conclusion as to which suites are right for you.
(Full disclosure, I am the lead developer of DifferentialEquations.jl. You will see at the end that DifferentialEquations.jl does offer pretty much everything from the other suite combined, but that’s no accident: … READ MORE
Interfacing with a Xeon Phi via Julia
March 4 2016 in C, HPC, Julia, Programming, Stochastics, Xeon Phi | Tags: C, julia, MIC, OpenMP, parallel, Xeon Phi | Author: Christopher Rackauckas
(Disclaimer: This is not a full-Julia solution for using the Phi, and instead is a tutorial on how to link OpenMP/C code for the Xeon Phi to Julia. There may be a future update where some of these functions are specified in Julia, and Intel’s compilertools.jl looks like a viable solution, but for now it’s not possible.)
Intel’s Xeon Phi has a lot of appeal. It’s an instant cluster in your computer, right? It turns out it’s not quite that easy. For one, the installation process itself is quite tricky, and the device has stringent requirements for motherboard choices. Also, making out at over a taraflop is good, but not quite as high as NVIDIA’s GPU acceleration cards.
However, there are a few big reasons why I think our interest in the Xeon Phi should be renewed. For one, Intel … READ MORE
Using Julia’s C Interface to Utilize C Libraries
February 4 2016 in C, Julia, Programming | Tags: | Author: Christopher Rackauckas
I recently ran into the problem that Julias’s (GNU Scientific Library) GSL.jl library is too new, i.e. some portions don’t work as of early 2016. However, to solve my problem I needed access to adaptive Monte Carlo integration methods. This means it was time to go in depth in Julia’s C interface. I will go step by step on how I created and compiled the C code, and called it from Julia. READ MORE