Hans P. Langtangen – författare

The second edition features lots of improvements and new material. The most significant additions include - finite difference methods and implementations for a 1D time-dependent heat equation (Chapter 1. 7. 6), - a solver for vibration of elastic structures (Chapter 5. 1. 6), - a step-by-step instruction of how to develop and test Diffpack programs for a physical application (Chapters 3. 6 and 3. 13), - construction of non-trivial grids using super elements (Chapters 3. 5. 4, 3. 6. 4, and 3. 13. 4), - additional material on local mesh refinements (Chapter 3. 7), - coupling of Diffpack with other types of software (Appendix B. 3) - high-level programming offinite difference solvers utilizing the new stencil (finite difference operator) concept in Diffpack (Appendix D. 8). Many of the examples, projects, and exercises from the first edition have been revised and improved. Some new exercises and projects have also been added. A hopefully very useful new feature is the compact overview of all the program examples in the book and the associated software files, presented in Chapter 1. 2. Errors have been corrected, many explanations have been extended, and the text has been upgraded to be compatible with Diffpack version 4. 0. The major difficulty when developing programs for numerical solution of partial differential equations is to debug and verify the implementation. This requires an interplay between understanding the mathematical model,the in­ volved numerics, and the programming tools.

To make full use of the ever increasing hardware capabilities of modern com­ puters, it is necessary to speedily enhance the performance and reliability of the software as well, and often without having a suitable mathematical theory readily available. In the handling of more and more complex real-life numerical problems in all sorts of applications, a modern object-oriented de­ sign and implementation of software tools has become a crucial component. The considerable challenges posed by the demand for efficient object-oriented software in all areas of scientific computing make it necessary to exchange ideas and experiences from as many different sources as possible. Motivated by the success of the first meeting of this kind in Norway in 1996, we decided to organize another International Workshop on Modern Software Tools for Scientific Computing, often referred to as SciTools'98. This workshop took place in Oslo, Norway, September 14-16, 1998. The ob­ jective was again to provide an open forum for exchange and discussion of modern, state-of-the-art software techniques applied to challenging numerical problems. The organization was undertaken jointly by the research institute SINTEF Applied Mathematics, the Departments of Mathematics and Infor­ matics at the University of Oslo, and the company Numerical Objects AS.

The second edition features lots of improvements and new material. The most significant additions include - finite difference methods and implementations for a 1D time-dependent heat equation (Chapter 1. 7. 6), - a solver for vibration of elastic structures (Chapter 5. 1. 6), - a step-by-step instruction of how to develop and test Diffpack programs for a physical application (Chapters 3. 6 and 3. 13), - construction of non-trivial grids using super elements (Chapters 3. 5. 4, 3. 6. 4, and 3. 13. 4), - additional material on local mesh refinements (Chapter 3. 7), - coupling of Diffpack with other types of software (Appendix B. 3) - high-level programming offinite difference solvers utilizing the new stencil (finite difference operator) concept in Diffpack (Appendix D. 8). Many of the examples, projects, and exercises from the first edition have been revised and improved. Some new exercises and projects have also been added. A hopefully very useful new feature is the compact overview of all the program examples in the book and the associated software files, presented in Chapter 1. 2. Errors have been corrected, many explanations have been extended, and the text has been upgraded to be compatible with Diffpack version 4. 0. The major difficulty when developing programs for numerical solution of partial differential equations is to debug and verify the implementation. This requires an interplay between understanding the mathematical model,the in­ volved numerics, and the programming tools.

To make full use of the ever increasing hardware capabilities of modern com­ puters, it is necessary to speedily enhance the performance and reliability of the software as well, and often without having a suitable mathematical theory readily available. In the handling of more and more complex real-life numerical problems in all sorts of applications, a modern object-oriented de­ sign and implementation of software tools has become a crucial component. The considerable challenges posed by the demand for efficient object-oriented software in all areas of scientific computing make it necessary to exchange ideas and experiences from as many different sources as possible. Motivated by the success of the first meeting of this kind in Norway in 1996, we decided to organize another International Workshop on Modern Software Tools for Scientific Computing, often referred to as SciTools''98. This workshop took place in Oslo, Norway, September 14-16, 1998. The ob­ jective was again to provide an open forum for exchange and discussion of modern, state-of-the-art software techniques applied to challenging numerical problems. The organization was undertaken jointly by the research institute SINTEF Applied Mathematics, the Departments of Mathematics and Infor­ matics at the University of Oslo, and the company Numerical Objects AS.