Re: a plea for more reliable mathematical routines

[Jonathan Joseph <jj(at)scorpio.tn.cornell.edu>]

Theo Brauers wrote:

> In our group we do rely on a number of the built-in math routines of IDL and
> I would really appreciate if this group could assemble a warning list of
> bugs in the math routines of IDL. IMO most of the IDL user/programmers do
> simple checks for the correctness of their code but they might never
> check  the math routines in detail.

I fully agree with Theo, I've been reading this interesting thread
and I'm a bit concerned.  I don't use heavy duty math routines
extensively, but I use a few that I could not be sure if they
are really working correctly.  Some people posting to this thread
have mentioned (seemingly knowingly) problems in some IDL math routines.
I've seen a few examples mentioned, but a list of known problems would
be very useful.  Is there such a list compiled anywhere?  If not,
could those doing the talking help in creating one?

-Jonathan