Scientific programming with Java classes supported with a scripting interpreter

The jLab environment provides a Matlab/Scilab like scripting language that is executed by an interpreter implemented in the Java language. This language supports all the basic programming constructs and an extensive set of built in mathematical routines that cover all the basic numerical analysis tasks. Moreover, the toolboxes of jLab can be easily implemented in Java and the corresponding classes can be dynamically integrated to the system. The efficiency of the Java compiled code can be directly utilized for any computationally intensive operations. Since jLab is coded in pure Java the build from source process is much cleaner, faster, platform independent and less error prone than similar C/C++/Fortran based open source environments (e.g. Scilab, Octave). Neuro-Fuzzy algorithms can require enormous computation resources and at the same time an expressive programming environment. We demonstrate the potentiality of jLab by describing the implementation of a Support Vector Machine (SVM) toolkit and by comparing its performance with a C/C++ and a Matlab version and across different computing platforms (i.e. Linux, Sun/Solaris, Windows XP)