Re: [boost] [gsoc-2013] Physics Library Abstraction Layer

Subject: Re: [boost] [gsoc-2013] Physics Library Abstraction Layer
From: Jeffrey Lee Hellrung, Jr. (jeffrey.hellrung_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-04-12 11:57:31

On Fri, Apr 12, 2013 at 12:53 AM, Michael Marcin <mike.marcin_at_[hidden]>wrote:

> On 4/12/13 12:44 AM, Jeffrey Lee Hellrung, Jr. wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 9:48 PM, Michael Marcin <mike.marcin_at_[hidden]
>> >wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Formalizing these shared aspects into concepts and creating an elegant
>>> interface with multiple backend bindings is what I would hope a boost
>>> physics library would accomplish.
>>>
>>>
>> Hmmm...this sounds like you have something similar to Boost.Multiprecision
>> in mind. Is that accurate?
>>
>>
> I've not used Multiprecision but looking over the intro docs yes very much
> so. Also Boost.MPI is very similar to what I'm talking about.
>
> Specifically from the MPI docs.
>
> Boost.MPI is not a completely new parallel programming library. Rather, it
> is a C++-friendly interface to the standard Message Passing Interface
> (MPI), the most popular library interface for high-performance, distributed
> computing. MPI defines a library interface, available from C, Fortran, and
> C++, for which there are many MPI implementations. Although there exist C++
> bindings for MPI, they offer little functionality over the C bindings. The
> Boost.MPI library provides an alternative C++ interface to MPI that better
> supports modern C++ development styles, including complete support for
> user-defined data types and C++ Standard Library types, arbitrary function
> objects for collective algorithms, and the use of modern C++ library
> techniques to maintain maximal efficiency.
>
>
> Obviously not exactly the same. MPI is standardized and there is no
> standard physics api that I'm aware of.
>

Hmmm...I guess 2 concerns I have are 1) What is lacking in present APIs
that a Boost-style interface would provide? and 2) The design itself of
such a system could easily be a summer's work, much less any start on the
implementation, so I think it might be hard to sufficiently limit the scope
of this project to within a summer while still defining a coherent result.

- Jeff