How Do I See math.h Implementations

[Nick]

Plauger is a very good writer. In the old days of the ANSI C committee,
Bill was the secretary. It's the only time I've ever looked forward to
reading meeting minutes!

OT: Which of "P" and "J" is "Bill" short for?

 

[Keith Thompson]

OT: Which of "P" and "J" is "Bill" short for?

The middle one.

 

[lawrence.jones]

OT: Which of "P" and "J" is "Bill" short for?

"P", kind-of, maybe. It's complicated. He answers to both "Bill" and
"P.J.", among other things.

 

[Walter Banks]

I wonder why "classics" like these go out of print. Perhaps we take C
libraries too much for granted.

It is a book with a limited market, libraries and people who write
functions for math functions. I am actually surprised that many
of the people I know actually own a copy. This particular book
would be expensive to reprint unless it was by scanned page images.
It was originally hand typeset. The proof checking must have been
very expensive originally. Dr. Hart lived about 60 miles from me
until his death in 2002.

Some of the other must have books have been reprinted and expanded
in recent years "Statistical Distributions" Hastings (different
Hastings), Peacock was republished in 2000 after a 25 year break
after the second edition. This book is an invaluable handbook for
anyone doing Monte Carlo simulations. It details algorithms to
create random numbers with a specific statistical distribution
starting with a single linear random number generator.

Regards,


walter..

 

[luser- -droog]

I wonder why "classics" like these go out of print. Perhaps we take C
libraries too much for granted.

I think it's deeper than that. There seems to be an "early part of
the century" zeitgeist that believes everything new is better than
everything old. This dogma is, of course, patently false; as becomes
clear when one considers that the defining characteristic of new
things is novelty, and the defining characteristic of old things is
endurance.