An issue with function signatures

[JuanPi]

Hi,

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TLDR:
optimizer and integration  functions require different functions for
value gradient and hessian. This is too expensive when computing the
value is costly. How to comply with the optimizer/integrator signature
without the extra costs of mutiple evaluations?
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Many function in octave (e.g. optimizations, like sqp) that optionally
accept gradients, and hessians, do it by accepting different functions
that compute each input argument. e.g. a cell argument in which the
first element is the function, the second element the gradient, and
the third element the hessian.

For many years I liked this separation, but having more experience
with other optimizers. I actually realize that accepting a single
function with multiple output arguments tends to be more numerically
friendly. This is clear when the computation of the function is costly
(eg. likelihood functions of GP) and many of the intermediate
computations can be sued in the gradient and the hessian (in
likelihood functions this is the inverse of the covariance, which is
very expensive!). That is one can compute value, gradient and hessian
in one call to the function.

So far I have not been able to use octave optimizers with gradients
and hessian due to this problem (running time). That is I couldn't yet
find a way to pass three different functions (for the value, the
gradient and the hessian), but internally compute the expensive part
only once.

Note that the problem is induced by the signature of the methods, not
by any property of the function.

Do you have any solution to this problem?

-- 
JuanPi Carbajal
https://goo.gl/ayiJzi

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