If a library doesn't provide all my needs, how should I proceed?
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Published on 2014-05-28T05:52:31Z
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I'm developing an application involving math and physics models, and I'd like to use a Math library for things like Matrices. I'm using C#, and so I was looking for some libraries and found Math.NET. I'm under the impression, from past experience, that for math, using a robust and industry-approved third party library is much better than writing your own code.
It seems good for many purposes, but it does not provide support for Quaternions, which I need to use as a type. Also, I need some functions in Vector and Matrix that also aren't provided, such as rotation matrices and vector rotation functions, and calculating cross products. At the same time, it provides a lot of functions/classes that I simply do not need, which might mean a lot of unnecessary bloat and complexity.
At this rate, should I even bother using the library? Should I write my own math library? Or is it a better idea to stick to the third party library and somehow wrap around it? Perhaps I should make a subclass of the Matrix and Vector type of the library? But isn't that considered bad style?
I've also tried looking for other libraries but unfortunately I couldn't find anything suitable.
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