Java for Scientific Computing, Pros and Cons

Jürgen Wolff v. Gudenberg (Institut für Informatik, Universität Würzburg, Germany)

Abstract: In this article we briefly discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the language Java for scientific computing. We concentrate on Java's type system, investigate its support for hierarchical and generic programming and then discuss the features of its floating-point arithmetic. Having found the weak points of the language we propose workarounds using Java itself as long as possible.