Hard(er) math with C#: numerical optimizations

In traditional business software, solving (semi)hard mathematical problems isn't very common. However, when getting closer to software for planning, manufacturing and analysis, mathematical equations start to be an essential part of any application.

I recently had a discussion with a university mathematican here in Finland, and we discussed programming languages in general. While functional languages (such as F#) work well in many cases, it's often languages in the C family (C, C++, C#, Java) that are the ones that are used to write the rest of the software.

On the .NET platform, both functional language and imperative language (like C#) can with great ease form complete application, there's nothing that says you couldn't write complex mathematical algorithm implementations in straight C#.

In a recent MSDN magazine issue, there's an article titled "Amoeba Method Optimization using C#", which shows how a rather complex optimization method can be implemented using .NET and C#.

In case you are interested, check out the article. Happy reading!