A Taxonomy of Automatic Differential Tools

Many of the current automatic differentiation (AD) tools have similar characteristics. Unfortunately, it is often the case that the similarities between these various AD tools can not be easily ascertained by reading the corresponding documentation. To clarify this situation, a taxonomy of AD tools is presented. The taxonomy places AD tools into the Elemental, Extensional, Integral, Operational, and Symbolic classes. This taxonomy is used to classify twenty-nine AD tools. Each tool is examined individually with respect to the mode of differentiation used and the degree of derivatives computed. A list detailing the availability of the surveyed AD tools is provided as an appendix. Disciplines Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing | Theory and Algorithms This article is available at Iowa State University Digital Repository: http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cs_techreports/67 A Taxonomy of Automat ic Di erent i at i on Tools