Guidelines for Numerical Codes

Hans Petter Langtangen [1, 2]

[1] Simula Research Laboratory
[2] University of Oslo

May 28, 2010


Summary. A common conception is that simple scientific computing scripts implemented in Matlab and Python are very similar - almost identical. However, practice observed by this author shows that students (and teachers) tend to make software with bad design in Matlab, while the design improves significantly when they use Python. This note points to the importance of a software design that acknowledges the generic nature of mathematical algorithms.

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