On the construction of polyalgorithms for automatic numerical analysis

This paper presents a summary of the experiences and viewpoints in the development of polyalgorithms for NAPSS. The polyalgorithms depend essentially on their objectives which are presented and discussed in the next section. The objectives of the NAPSS polyalgorithms are quite high and the four primary difficulties (met so far) in achieving them are discussed in the third section. These four difficulties are common sense, error control, flexibility versus simplicity, and reliability versus efficiency. Some of the approaches used in NAPSS to overcome these difficulties are given.