Why are the simulations, especially ones written in MATLAB not modular?
The simulations, especially those written in MATLAB, at first might appear not well written; they do not take advantage of modular programming. However, in our website modules, we wanted to keep all subroutines and functions within a single script file. This might not seem logical at first glance. But, it is important to note the overall goal of the simulations is to provide the student only one file. The content is in one file for simplicity. Otherwise, there would be dozens of files that the student would have to manage and understand– not just one. Also we want to show a numerical method worked out step-by-step as if the student was working it out by hand. This is why many of the simulations show each iteration separately as opposed to in a loop. We hope that you would ask your students to write procedures (subroutines, functions, etc) and use modular programming techniques as part of the learning process of Numerical Methods.
