Object Oriented Methods for Interoperable Scientific and Engineering Computing

by Michael Henderson (Editor)

There is a growing awareness in universities and industrial and government laboratories that object oriented methods have the potential to greatly improve the usefulness of computers in science and engineering. There are many efforts underway to redesign and reimplement large codes written in the 1970s and 1980s to take advantage of the improvement in maintainability and flexibility that object oriented designs offer. Repositories such as Netlib and indices like GAMS have improved our ability to share code, but making the shared code useful requires widespread agreement about how the code is structured and how scientific and engineering codes should interoperate. This volume contains papers presented at the October 1998 SIAM Workshop on Object Oriented Methods for Interoperable Scientific and Engineering Computing that covered a variety of topics and issues related to designing and implementing computational tools for science and engineering. Some examples include tools for ODEs and PDEs, discussions of how to write abstract code without loss of performance, and practical advice based on experiences. The book includes experiences of both developers and industrial users of software, highlighting the difficult issues and merits of different approaches used in the aircraft, automotive, and petroleum industries, as well as national laboratories. There are also "real-world" papers in which authors have used spreadsheets, problem-solving environments like MATLAB, and other non-API interfaces to meet the demands of engineering user communities.

321 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1999

About the author

You'll find my bio on my website at www.michaelhenderson.org.uk

My new book has been reviewed in Publishers Weekly. See below:

Review of NO ENEMY TO CONQUER, in Publishers Weekly Dec 15, 2008

No Enemy to Conquer: Forgiveness in an Unforgiving World Michael Henderson, foreword by the Dalai Lama. Baylor Univ., $19.95 paper (234p) ISBN-978-1-60258-140-1
Henderson (From India with Hope), whose Irish Protestant family sought reconciliation with their Catholic compatriots, may be just the sort of eloquent messenger the world needs to understand the utility and not just the symbolic value of forgiveness. Starting with the Dalai Lama’s foreword—a paean to the power of redemption—this book is a blissful read and a persuasive argument for forgiveness as a practical tool for global survival. As the author demonstrates in a discussion of (the few) American individuals and institutions that have made formal apologies for the African slave trade, history cannot be redeemed with an apology, but an apology can create a new starting point for history. Most instructive, however, are the stories of people, from Chechnya to Pennsylvania Amish country, who have suffered unspeakable acts at the hands of enemies and staunchly refuse to be consumed by victimhood. Henderson shows the real muscle behind forgiveness, avoiding preciousness and sentimentality. He writes, “Forgiveness has an image problem”—with this latest effort, perhaps no more. (Feb.)