C++ as a tool for computational simulation in physics -- examples drawn from shock wave hydrodynamics
Allen C. Robinson · Bulletin of the American Physical Society · 1993
Object-oriented languages are attracting a good deal of attention as candidates for extensive use in scientific computing. Much of the attention is focusing on C++ due to its wide availability. Use of C++ provides both opportunities due to its powerful abstraction capabilities as well as efficiency challenges which depend critically on application code and object-library design. The parallel shock wave physics hydrodynamic code, PCTH, is written primarily in C++ and uses extensively an object-oriented coding style. Rationale for and experiences with using object-oriented approaches in the development of the PCTH code for parallel machines will be outlined and suggestions for effective object-oriented development practices for scientific computing will be given.