The
Tool Set for Computational Experiments is intended to
support the running, documentation and
evaluation of computational experiments.
We take our cues from the natural sciences where experiments are performed in
a lab that is equipped with tools designed specifically for the purpose of
supporting experimentation and where experiments are fully documented in
a lab book. This is done so the results can be analyzed in the proper context
and others can reproduce the same experiments to verify the results or perhaps
test hypotheses about which parts of the experimental context are responsible
for the observed results. The informational needs of scientists evaluating
computational experiments are exactly the same as those for evaluating other
types of experiments: the context must be known and, to lend credibility to
the results, one must be able to reproduce the same experiment in one's own
lab from the data presented.
We first discuss the installation of the tool set (Section ![[*]](crossref.png)
)
and then show through examples how the tools might be used to
- run computational experiments such that they can be reproduced at
a later time (Section ),
- convert (certain parts of) the raw data output by the experiment to
several more sophisticated data formats such as LATEX table, gnuplot,
etc. (Section ).
