I've always had this question in mind (even if it may sound vague), but in my numerical analysis courses we've always learned how to analyze and optimize code. However, since most linear algebra libraries (i.e. LAPACK, BLAS, etc.) have been continuously optimized by professional developers since the 1980s, I'm questioning what the purpose of having us write down algorithms and run them is. For example, we've had to write the QR iteration algorithm in MATLAB when there's already a built-in function (eig
). Are there special cases where these built-in functions are vunerable for numerical instability where custom algorithms would outperform them?
Update : I want to thank you all for your interesting answers and comments I have read them all.
I also realized the beauty of this very narrow field of mathematics that has profound application in our work. The amount of effort that these mathematicians and computer scientist have invested in making these codes more powerful have made it beautiful for us (the ones who are learning about their theories) so that we can admire them while studying and knowing when to use these optimized built-in functions. While we write down a 15 line of codes to compute the Householder QR decomposition of some matrix $A$, I can only wonder how many lines of codes the built in function qr()
has (probably in the 100s) so that it can serve us best in our computations in real life applications.