Re: OON: JAMA: Java Matrix package

[boisvert@cam.nist.gov (Ronald F Boisvert)]

Initial replies to our posting on oon-list seem to indicate that the
the purpose of JAMA was not made clear.

Staff of the MathWorks and NIST have been working as a subcommittee
of the Numerics Working Group of the Java Grande Forum (JGF) to draft
a strawman proposal for a Java matrix class.  The JGF is an open
forum for the discussion of Java for "grande" applications such as
those found in scientific computing.  It has had participation from
government labs (including NIST, Sandia), industry (including Sun,
IBM, Intel, The MathWorks, Visual Numerics, NAG) and academia
(including U. Tenn.  Knoxville, Indiana U., UCSB, UNC, Univ. of
Houston, ICASE).  The Matrix class is now in review by the JGF
participants.  However, in order to get the widest possible exposure,
it is also being made public for all to review and comment upon.
This is the first step in a long and open standardization process
which is meant provide everyone with plenty of opportunity to comment.

The Numerics Working Group of the JGF is also preparing a report
with recommendations for improvements to the Java language for
numerical computing.  This report will be released in order to
solicit public comment in about six weeks time.  A final report
will be issued at about the time of SC 99.  

More information found at

http://www.npac.syr.edu/javagrande      (Java Grande)
http://math.nist.gov/javanumerics       (Numerics Working Group)
http://math.nist.gov/javanumerics/jama  (JAMA)

I strongly urge that postings containing comments on JAMA be cc-d
to jama@nist.gov so that they will be seen by the Jama authors.