The Matrix Template Library (MTL)

The Matrix Template Library

"The Matrix Template Library (MTL) is a high-performance generic component library that provides comprehensive linear algebra functionality for a wide variety of matrix formats. "

"As with the Standard Template Library (STL), MTL uses a five-fold approach, consisting of generic functions, containers, iterators, adaptors, and function objects, all developed specifically for high performance numerical linear algebra. Within this framework, MTL provides generic algorithms corresponding to the mathematical operations that define linear algebra. Similarly, the containers, adaptors, and iterators are used to represent and to manipulate concrete linear algebra objects such as matrices and vectors."

"To many scientific computing users, however, the advantages of an elegant programming interface are secondary to issues of performance. Generic programming is a powerful tool in this regard as well - performance tuning can itself be described in a generic fashion. These performance tuning abstractions are realized in a generic low-level library - the Basic Linear Algebra Instruction Set (BLAIS). Experimental results show that MTL with the BLAIS achieves performance that is as good as, or better than, vendor-tuned libraries. Thus, MTL demonstrates that the proper abstractions can be used to achieve high levels of performance, contrary to conventional wisdom. In addition, MTL requires orders of magnitude fewer lines of code for its implementation, with the concomitant savings in development and maintenance effort. "