Content for the Math stack page

[jasonmccampbell]

Ready for merge if everyone is happy with the content. I updated the main page with a live link to the math page now. I have't found a way to view this via gh-pages to test the rendering. If anyone has a suggestion for how to do it, let me know. (The CNAME doesn't point to me so GitHub doesn't build it.)

[forki]

Nice. Yes please add this.

[funnelweb]

Yes. Also, I feel this should be merged to unblock other contributors who want to take the material further

[tpetricek]

I agree that merging this draft into the main branch would be a great start. It is already good, even in the current state! @jasonmccampbell can I do it?

[jasonmccampbell]

Sure, I'm good with that if you think the material is ready. I have some
additional content on the commercial packages that I expect to add to the
PR (or a new PR) this afternoon or evening US central time. I am also
waiting for responses from a couple of vendors clarifying a few questions I
had, but I can always add detail after the first updates.

Jason
On Nov 28, 2012 5:05 PM, "Tomas Petricek" notifications@github.com wrote:

I agree that merging this draft into the main branch would be a great
start. It is already good, even in the current state! @jasonmccampbellhttps://github.com/jasonmccampbellcan I do it?

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//pull/34#issuecomment-10827360.

[tpetricek]

Sounds good, we can certainly wait for your edits and then merge it, thanks for the contribution!

[jasonmccampbell]

Ok, I think the page is in better shape now. Comments and corrections are very welcome.

[funnelweb]

Good info. Have you compared with http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh273075%28v=vs.100%29.aspx? (I think the idea is that the fsharp.org material be written to subsume the MSDN material)

Temporal phrases like "will be available soon" tend to go stale very quickly and there's no guarantee anyone will remember to fix the page when the library does/doesn't come out. Suggest cutting the material until an actual release is available. Let's deal in reality not promises.

[funnelweb]

Another comment - negative phrases like "does not support XYZ" (e.g. "does not support Mono") easily become dated - maybe a release comes out tomorrow supporting Mono, and suddenly we look like we're saying something misleading about a commercial product. Positive phrases like "uses Microsoft.NET" tend to be more robust to change.

So suggest you review with this in mind - so what's there, not what's not there.

[jasonmccampbell]

Ben, good suggestions on the phrasing. I'll try to make those edits
tomorrow. I used the page you mentioned as the source for a lot of the
packages, though I went one-by-one since I wasn't sure of the currency of
the material. If there are any packages you, or anyone else, knows of I'll
try to add them.
On Dec 2, 2012 3:51 PM, "Ben Winkel" notifications@github.com wrote:

Another comment - negative phrases like "does not support XYZ" (e.g. "does
not support Mono") easily become dated - maybe a release comes out tomorrow
supporting Mono, and suddenly we look like we're saying something
misleading about a commercial product. Positive phrases like "uses
Microsoft.NET" tend to be more robust to change.

So suggest you review with this in mind - so what's there, not what's not
there.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//pull/34#issuecomment-10935845.

[funnelweb]

It will be great to have this in, and light up the 'Math Stacks' link on fsharp.org, A lot of people coming to fsharp.org must want to click on that.

[jasonmccampbell]

@funnelweb I cleaned up the wording to remove the soon-dated phrasing based on your suggestions and removed the Alea.CUDA reference for now. It does read better.

[funnelweb]

Excellent.

Typos:
numberical --> numerical
3g --> 3d
Mumerics --> Numerics

Perhaps remove "A Windows-based .NET environment is required for compilation. " for the same reasons as mentioned above. Likewise replace "a beta version is available from ..." with "the library is available from ...".

There is another commercial library here: http://www.centerspace.net/products/overview/

[jasonmccampbell]

@funnelweb thanks for the proofing. Fixed those typos and several more, though I ran out of time to add Center Space. I should be able to do it tomorrow evening, either on this PR or I can submit a separate one if this one is merged.

[cdrnet]

Very nice, thanks!

A few notes on the Math.NET Numerics text (disclaimer: I'm involved in the project):

• There seems to be an extra space at the beginning, causing extra identation
• The official website is http://numerics.mathdotnet.com
• It might be worth noting that it comes with specific F# support with its extension modules (and a special nuget package). Also, math data structures from the F# PowerPack like BigRational will continue to be maintained here (instead of FSharpx, see Port the Rationals from the PowerPack fsprojects/FSharpx.Extras#154, the first parts see Bring F# PowerPack's Complex & BigRational and FSharpx's DistributionMonad mathnet/mathnet-numerics#61)
• Portable build also supports Silverlight 5 and Windows Store apps

Suggestion for new wording, for simplicity, but can be modified further of course:

• Math.NET Numerics provides
  a large collection of algorithms needed in science and engineering, including
  linear algebra, special functions, statistics, probability models, interpolation and FFTs.
  In addition to the core .Net package, Numerics specifically supports F# 3.0 with idiomatic
  extension modules and maintains mathematical data structures like BigRational that originated in
  the F# PowerPack. If a performance boost is needed, the managed-code provider backing
  its linear algebra routines and decompositions can be exchanged with wrappers for optimized
  native implementations such as Intel MKL. Supports .Net 4.0, the portable version also SL5
  and .NET for Windows Store apps. License: MIT/X11

[cdrnet]

Btw, there is also Xaye.Math at https://github.com/cuda/Xaye.Math, an F# math library using optimized native routines of Intel MKL by Marcus Cuda.

[ghost]

I'll merge this for Tomas, then adjust the text as @cdrnet requests :)