Graphical simulator of mathematical algorithms
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abstract
The main objective of our work is to develop a tool (Graphical Simulator of Mathematical
Algorithms - GraSMA) that can be used by teachers and students in the classes
of Numerical Methods. GraSMA will screen the execution of mathematical algorithms
coded in Octave. For the end user, the software is therefore a sequence of parameterized
algorithms whose steps can be visualized graphically. To achieve it we try two
different strategies. We started by annotating manually the original algorithm with inspector
functions. Now we are testing a new approach that aims at automatically annotating
the original code with inspector functions. A language processor, built with
Lex and Yacc tools, will be used to automatically annotate Octave code with inspection
function. Until now, this task has been applied to a particular class of numerical
algorithms that calculates zeros of nonlinear functions. The objective now is to extend
this strategy to a larger class of numerical methods. This application permits to simulate
mathematical methods. So, users can have a better understanding of mathematical
methods. However, we think this application can’t be completely generic and if we
want to display complex algorithm, it will be hard and slow. Indeed, we think that Java
isn’t the best language to deal with mathematics, C could be better.
