Re: [boost] A possible GSOC 2011 proposal idea

Subject: Re: [boost] A possible GSOC 2011 proposal idea
From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-03-21 01:03:54

Andrew Sutton wrote:
>>> If the community is interested in such a project, I have a
>>> minimalistic LP solver already written. I just need to "boostify" it
>>> and I'll upload within the next week.
>>
>> I think you're underestimating the effort required to produce an LP
>> library which would be considered acceptable to boost by two
>> orders of magnitude.
>
> In 3 moths? Absolutely! But I'm not terribly worried about that. If
> Chad good submits a proposal with reasonable goals, I'd be more than
> happy to fund the proposal.

Hmmm- two orders of magnitude = 100 so I was saying that that such
a job would be 100 weeks.  My real point is that to be accepted into boost,
a library pretty much has to be demonstrably better than any 
opensource/openlicense
alternative.  I'm not making a judgment on this, it's just the way that I 
see the review
process working.

Also, "toy implementations" (with few, if any, exceptions) have not
passed the boost review process either.  When something is submitted
it is compared to all the alternatives and criticised according to the needs
of a wide variety of applications so if it's not complete and very
robust it doesn't get accepted.

Then there is a huge amount of work including build, test and documentation.

Finally, I think that numerical analysis issues such as near singular basis
matrices, cycling, accumulated error and periodic re-inversion etc, etc
are not issues that can be addressed satisfactorily in a couple of weeks
for a library which would hope to reach the level that boost users
expect and demand.  I would say this is true even if the scope were
confined to a simplex method implemenatation.  Including mixed integer
problems would be a whole 'nother level.  To do this right really is
a very big job.

I should note that many (most) of the GSOC proposals
have failed to enter boost because the effort was way underestimated.

Of course, if anyone want's to take a shot, go ahead - it's a free
country.
.
Robert Ramey

PS "I'd be more than happy to fund the proposal."

Where can I line up for some of this?

RR

>
> Andrew
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