Feature request
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg80497] Feature request
- From: Jon Harrop <jon at ffconsultancy.com>
- Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 06:22:03 -0400 (EDT)
I'm just getting to grips with .NET-link from Microsoft's F# programming language and am mildly frustrated with the way .NET-link handles complex numbers. The interface allows you to specify your own complex number class and Mathematica will use it to represent complexes in expressions. This is done because .NET itself lacks a representation for complex numbers. However, Mathematica does not provide a complex number class implementation and the interface it requires does not appear to be compatible with the complex number class that Microsoft provide with F# and I have been unable to get them to cooperate. There is a very easy solution to this and perhaps WRI would be kind enough to adopt this suggestion: just make the default representation of complexes on the .NET side an array with two elements. This is an existing .NET type, all .NET languages can use it seamlessly and it lowers the barrier for new users who would no longer have to fiddle with remotely executing Mathematica commands from their .NET code to get Mathematica to load some .NET code and recognise the complex number class inside it. -- Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy OCaml for Scientists http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/ocaml_for_scientists/?usenet