Re: GLPSOL in webassemby faster than native ?

[Andrew Makhorin]

On Sat, 2020-09-26 at 09:51 +0200, Manuel Muñoz Márquez wrote:
> > Why do you want glpk to produce absolutely identical results on
> > different platforms? This has no practical sense. 
> > 
> 
> I think this is a desirable behavior. If your are solving a real
> problem it look very weird if you provides a solution using your
> computer and when you put in the user web server the system provides
> other.
> 
> Another point, is that if the calculation, and so the time required,
> depends on the platform there is no reliable way to compare "my
> results" with previous research.
> 
> Some systems, as LaTeX, work in that way. The result doesn't depend
> even the floating computation capabilities of the system CPU.
> 

In case of TeX it is important to provide identical output on any
platform, and to attain this Don implemented all calculations using
rational arithmetic. Though this approach can be used to solve, say,
linear algebra problems, it is impractical in general case. A desirable
behavior of a computer program that solves a problem with a numerical
method is to provide the result with sufficient accuracy for a
reasonable time, not more. Engineers and scientists (unlike
mathematicians and maybe accountants) as a rule are not interested in
more than 5-6 correct decimal places in numerical results.