JEDI-Math FAQ

Version 0.01

02 March, 2003

[Q] I want to donate my code to the JEDI-Math project.  Is there anything
    special I need to do?

[A] Yes, there is one thing that you absolutely must do for JEDI-Math to be
    able to use your code.  Your code *must* be released for use under the
    Mozilla Public License, *and* all of your source units need to show the
    relevant licensing and copyright information at the beginning of the
    file, preceding the beginning of the declarations.  like this...

    (**********************************************************************
      The contents of this file are subject to the Mozilla Public License
      Version 1.1 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in
      compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License
      at http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/

      Software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS"
      basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See
      the License for the specific language governing rights and limitations
      under the License.

      The Original Code is <insert.unit.name.here>

      The Initial Developer of the Original Code is <insert.your.name>
      Portions created by <insert.your.name> are Copyright (C) <date>,
      <insert.your.name>
    (**********************************************************************)

    as far as I know <insert standard disclaimer: I am not a lawyer!>,
    *ALL* contributing authors must agree to release their code under the
    MPL.

    If you want a more detailed explanation of the MPL, an annotated
    version is available for viewing here:
            http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/annotated.html


[Q] Are JEDI-Math donations required to adhere to any particular formatting
    and/or coding conventions?

[A] While he JEDI Project has adopted an extensive set of style guidelines
    (which you can see at http://delphi-jedi.org/Jedi:JCLOPSG:62850), there
    is no requirement that the code you submit has to conform to these
    conventions.  of course if your donated code DOES conform to the JEDU
    style guide, we certainly won't complain!  :^)

    there's also a JEDI code formatting tool available here...

        http://jedicodeformat.sourceforge.net/
        http://sourceforge.net/projects/jedicodeformat/

    I haven't tried this thing yet...but the web page claims that the
    default style is the one recommended by Borland...and since the Borland
    style is what JEDI is using, I'd guess you couldn't go too far wrong if
    you ran your code through the JEDI formatter


[Q] Okay...where do I send my stuff once it's ready to go?

[A] Donations to the JEDI-Math project will be gladly accepted by any one
    of three project "librarians"...

    Carlo Kok <carlokok@users.sourceforge.net> handles
        Long Integers
        Permutations
        Random Numbers
        Root-Finding
        N-Tuples
        Discrete Math
        Differential Equations

    Jose Perez <jperez@users.sourceforge.net> collects
        Statistics
        Complex numbers
        BLAS support
        Fast Fourier Transforms
        Histograms
        Discrete Hankel Transforms
        Roots of Polynomials
        Quadrature
        Random distributions
        Chebyshev approximation
        Physical constants

    Mark Vaughan <mavaughan@eathlink.net> takes care of
        Least-Squares Fitting
        Vectors and Matrices
        Linear Algebra
        Minimization
        Simulated Annealing
        Numerical Differentiation
        Interpolation

    please note that this list of topic areas is by no means exhaustive!
    if you have something that doesn't fit nicely in any of the current
    categories, please feel free to send it to any one of the librarians.

    closely related to the above, you should also be aware of the following
    <standard disclaimer>
        The JEDI-Maths librarians are not guaranteed to be experts or
        scholars in any of the subject areas that they maintain.  a brief
        comment or two describing the nature & functionality of any
        contribution will be hugely appreciated.
    </standard disclaimer>

    one of the first things we'll want to do with each contribution is to
    try to compile the code...so the submissions should be self-contained
    ...that is, everything necessary to compile the relevant code should
    be included with the submission

    my personal preference is for each individual contribution to be zipped
    into a single archive and sent to the respective librarian via e-mail.
    but if that's awkward for some reason (e.g., an enormous zip file),
    contributors should be encouraged to contact one of the librarians to
    arrange for "special shipping & handling"