<html xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"> <head> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=US-ASCII"> <meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 11 (filtered medium)"> <style>  </style> </head> <body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple> <div class=Section1> I am currently developing a numerical computing package in PLT Scheme to support my knowledge-based simulation work.  I am almost ready to release it and have a few questions of the PLT Scheme community at large.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> 1.  My current plans are to distribute it using PLaneT.  Is this the appropriate distribution medium?<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> 2.  The entire science collection is rather large – several dozen modules in eight primary areas: Mathematical Constants and Functions, Special Functions (Error Functions, Gamma Functions, Psi Functions, and Zeta Functions), Random Number Generation (extensions to SRFI 27: Sources of Random Bits), Random Number Distributions (including density functions and plotting), Statistics, Histograms (continuous (1D and 2D) and discrete, including plotting), Chebyshev Approximations, and PLoT Scheme Extensions (histogram data plotting, discrete function and data plotting).  Currently, it is packaged (and documented) as a single collection with sub-collections for the special functions and random number distributions.  Would it be better to distribute the functionality as individual collections (presumably eight matching the functional areas above)?<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> 3.  In the last week, I updated all of the modules to use provide/contract to define and enforce parameter (and result) types, ranges, and inter-argument constraints.  I really like the concept and think it’s a great feature.  However, it seems (very subjective here) that my examples run about an order of magnitude slower than before.  [To be fair, nothing is pre-compiled and much of that may be overhead due to compilation time when they are loaded.]  Does anyone have a good handle on the overhead associated with using contracts?<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> 4.  The documentation is about 80% complete, but there is content in all of the sections that should give anyone a feel for what it provides.  The pdf file is over half a meg and I felt it would not be good list etiquette (or even possible) to attach it.  I would, however, be happy to send it to anyone who wants to look at it.  [I don’t have ready access to any servers outside of a firewall so I can’t post a link, either.  But, if anyone else would like to do so, I can send them the document.]<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> 5.  The code is essentially complete – just some minor clean-up needed, but has not been made into a .plt file.  I could zip it (it happens to be resident on a Windows box at the moment) and one could manually install it, if anyone really wants to see the code.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Thanks in advance for any advice.<o:p></o:p> </div> </body> </html>