Languages for Scientific Computing 1 --- 2009-10

Prerequisites:

Basic knowledge of numerical methods, numerical linear algebra, programming languages, algorithms.


Overview:

We will compare and contrast languages especially suitable for numerical computations, symbolic computations, and high-performance computations: Mathematica, Matlab, C, Fortran. We will also cover standard tools and libraries for scientific and parallel computations: BLAS, LAPACK, MPI, OpenMP... An introduction to Python should conclude the semester. Different programming paradigms will be introduced: functional vs. imperative, discrete vs. numerical vs. symbolic. Programs will be evaluated with respect to metrics like performance, size, elegance. This first module focuses on numerical computations, high-performance and parallelism. The course is hands on. The students are expected to solve (and compete on) simple programming assignments and to present approach & results in front of the class.



• Winter semester 2009-10.


• CAMPUS #: 09ws-14775


• Lectures begin: Thursday, October 15th. In the afternoon.




• Lectures & Exercises:
  Thursdays, 10.30-12.00, Rogowski 115 - AICES seminar room (Schinkelstrasse 2)
  Thursdays, 17.00-18.30, Rogowski 115 - AICES seminar room (Schinkelstrasse 2)


• Office hours: Tuesdays, 11am-1pm, AICES R432 (Rogowski Building - Schinkelstrasse 2)




• Lectures:
  
  
  • Oct.22nd: Introduction to Programming
    History of Programming Languages
  
  
  
  • Oct.29th: Mathematica. Replacements rules, assignments, functions.
    Mathematica pt2: Lists, functional constructs, programming constructs.
    
  
  
  
  • Nov.5th: Classes moved to January 15th.
  
  
  
  • Nov.12th: Floating point arithmetic.
    Mathematica: Numerics.
    
  
  
  
  • Nov.19th: Matlab demo. Fast Fourier Transform.
  
  
  
  • Nov.26th: Visualization in Matlab.
    
  
  
  
  • Dec.3rd: Intro to C (part 1).
    Book: "The C Programming Language", by Brian Kernighan & Dennis Ritchie.
    Visualization in Mathematica.
  
  
  
  • Dec.10rd: Intro to C (part 2).
    Shell scripting.
  
  
  
  • Dec.17rd: Numerical Linear Algebra libraries. High-performance.
    BLAS
    LAPACK
    
  
  
  
  • Jan.7th: FLAME, a language and a library for dense linear algebra.
  
  
  
  • Jan.14th & 15th: Python and extreme programming.
  
  
  
  • Jan.21st: Makefiles.
    
  
  
  
  • Jan.28th: Programming the Cell Broadband Engine.
  
  
  
  • Feb.2nd: How to give a presentation. [HOWTO-Presentations].
    Afternoon: Eigensolvers for Multicore Processors and Massively Parallel Supercomputers.