ELLPACK: An Evolving Problem Solving Environment

This paper describes the possible evolution of the ELLPACK system from a research tool for software evaluation to an expert s~tem for solving elliptic problems. The third "version " of ELLPACK is presently under development with the intention of exploring the impact of parallel and vec-tor computers 00 its problem solving capabilities and to introduce problem solving methods based on geometric domain mappings. ELLPACK: 1974-1983 The original motivation for the ELLPACK system was to provide a tool for the performance evaluations of software for solving parllal differential equations (PDEs). It had become clear in the work of {Hollstis et ai, 1975] that one needed a well organized environment for making large scale evaluations of PDE software. One aspect of this environment is a high level language for expressing the PDE problem to be solved. A second aspect is to have a framework into which one can insert problem solving modules from various sources. Prototype systems called ELLPAC