  The implementation of multi-stage splitting integrators is essentially the
same as the implementation of the familiar Strang/Verlet method. Therefore
multi-stage formulas may be easily incorporated into software that now uses the
Strang/Verlet integrator. We study in detail the two-parameter family of
palindromic, three-stage splitting formulas and identify choices of parameters
that may outperform the Strang/Verlet method. One of these choices leads to a
method of effective order four suitable to integrate in time some partial
differential equations. Other choices may be seen as perturbations of the
Strang method that increase efficiency in molecular dynamics simulations and in
Hybrid Monte Carlo sampling.
